RAMBLES 

ABour 

igtoric BroolUpn 




A Collection of the 

Facts, Legends, Traditions and 

Reminiscences that Time has (Jathered 

about the Historic Homesteads and 

Landmarks of Brooklyn 




Illustrated hy Reproductions of 
Rare Prints and Old Photographs 



Printed For The 

BROOKLYN TRUST COMPANY 
Proofelpn, i^.l?. 

1916 






Copyright, 1916 

BY THE 

BROOKLYN TRUST COMPANY 
Brooklyn, N.Y. 



The ornament 

on the cover is drawn 

from a picture of the old church 

at New Utrecht. The headband is 

from a plan of the city of New York as 

surveyed in 1766 showing on the right 

the shores of Brooklyn. The 

tailpiece shows the first 

church in Brooklyn 



NOV 15 1916 



Compiled, Written and Printed 

by direction of the 

Walton Advertising ^ Printing Company 

Boston, Mass. 

©Cl.A44Hr> JO 



FOREWORD 



IN PRESENTING "Rambles about Historic Brooklyn," no at- 
tempt has been made by the Brooklyn Trust Company to give 
a complete list of places of historic interest, but rather to 
glean here and there stories of interesting landmarks, both past 
and present. The Rambler wandered via trolley and motor and 
on foot from one point to another, guided by his own will and the 
lure of century-old traditions and localities. His data have been 
made as nearly historically correct as the reminiscences of residents, 
the legends and traditions that come down from generation to gen- 
eration, and the various histories of Brooklyn, New York, and Long 
Island, allow. The book is designed not only for the residents of the 
Borough of Brooklyn, but also for strangers who may come here, 
interested in the many historic points of which we may justly boast. 
For Brooklyn has contributed to the history of the United States 
her share of tradition and romance, of thrilling incident and battle- 
scene; and from the lore of sage and poet, of historian and scholar, 
of student and antiquary, these rambles have been reinforced, with 
the intent to present this city in the light of a modern Mecca for those 
interested in historic landmarks and valued associations. 

The author desires to acknowledge valuable assistance given by Aliss 
Emma Toedteberg, Miss Isabel Beers, and Aliss Edna A. Rupp, of the 
Long Island Historical Society; Mrs. William Sloane Kennedy; Mr. 
Daniel M. Treadwell; Judge Charles C. Suffren; Mr. Charles S. 
Stratton, engineer in the office of the president, Borough of Brook- 
lyn; Dr. Willis Boughton and Mr. Allen B. Doggett, of Erasmus 
Hall High School; T. N. Glover; Robert Fridenberg; Mrs. Townsend 
Cortelyou Van Pelt; Mrs. John F. Berry; Miss Emma Papenmeyer; 
Miss Anna M. Wilbur; Mrs. John L. Zabriskie; Miss Mabel A. Parfitt; 
Mrs. Otis Downs; Miss Sarah Ball; Frank Cousins; Mrs. C. S. Worden; 
the Bank of the Manhattan Company; the Long Island Historical 
Society; the Brooklyn Club; the Brooklyn Public Library; the New 
York Public Library; the Boston Public Library; the New England 
Historic (jenealogical Society; and the Massachusetts Historical 
Society. 

We trust the reader will not consider inappropriate the insertion 
here of a few words about the origin and scope of the Brooklyn Trust 
Company. The Company was incorporated on April 14, 1866, by 
an act of the New York Legislature, there being an urgent demand 
in Brooklyn for a strong banking institution which sliould act as 
executor or trustee and in various other fiduciary capacities. The 
growth of the Company has been steady and continuous. Its de- 
posits have increased from 551,625,594.33 on April i, 1876, to 



FOREWORD 



^37,272,209.06 on April I, 1916. In March, 1903, a branch was estab- 
lished at Fulton Street and Bedford Avenue for the convenience of 
the Bedford district of Brooklyn, and in May, 1907, the Company 
opened a New York office on the corner of Wall Street and Broadway. 
The Long Island Loan Sc Trust Company was merged with the Brook- 
lyn Trust Company in January, 1913, thus still further adding to the 
extensive resources of the Company and increasing its power to render 
the fullest fiduciary and financial service. 

The original incorporators were Henry E. Pierrepont, Jasper W. 
Gilbert, James Weaver, Alfred M. Wood, John T. Runcie, William 
Wall, Alexander McCue, William B. Lewis, Daniel Chauncey, Daniel 
F. Fernald, J. Carson Brevoort, Cornelius J. Sprague, John H. 
Prentice, Henry J. Cullen, William M. Harris. 

The present oificers of the Company are as follows: Edwin P. 
Maynard, President; David H. Lanman, Frank J. W. Diller, 
Willis McDonald, Jr., Frederick T. Aldridge, Vice-Presidents; Willard 
P. Schenck, Secretary; Horace W. Farrell, Herbert U. Silleck, Austin 
W. Penchoen, Frederick B. Lindsay, Gilbert H. Thirkield, Assistant 
Secretaries. 

The Trustees are: PVank L. Babbott, Walter St. J. Benedict, 
George M. Boardman, Samuel W. Boocock, Edgar M. Cullen, William 
N. Dykman, John H. Emanuel, Jr., William Hester, Francis L. 
Hine, David H. Lanman, David G. Legget, Frank Lyman, Howard 
W. Maxwell, Edwin P. Maynard, Frank C. Munson, Henry F. Noyes, 
Willis L. Ogden, Joseph E. Owens, Robert L.' Pierrepont, Harold I. 
Pratt, Clinton L. Rossiter, J. H. Walbridge, Alexander M. White, and 
Willis D. Wood. 

The Company welcomes an opportunity to place at your service 
its unsurpassed banking and fiduciary facilities. If you contemplate 
banking relations or need the fiduciary assistance of a trust com- 
pany in caring for trust funds or in the safeguarding of an estate or in 
the many ways a trust company can be of assistance, this trust com- 
pany hopes you will consult its officers. 



AUTHORITIES 

Acknowledgment is here made of the writer's indebtedness to the 
following authorities which have been consulted in the preparation 
of this book: — 

Histor>- of Brookh'n, Ileni}' R. Stik-s 

History of Kings County and City of Brooklyn, Henry R. Stiles 

History of Brooklyn, Stephen M. Ostrander 

Personal Reminiscences of Men and Things on Long Island, Daniel M. ^I'readwell 

History, Legend, and Tradition about Flatbush and Flatlands, (unpublished manu- 
script) by Daniel XL Treadwell 

Chronicles oi Erasmus Hall, Willis Boughton 

Revolutionary Incidents of SutTolk and Kings County, Hcnr}- Onderdonk 

Notes relating to the Town of Brooklyn, Gabriel Furman 

Genealogy of the \ an Brunt Family, Teunis G. Bergen 

Genealogy of the Lefferts Family, Teunis G. Bergen 

Early Settlers in Kings County, Teunis G. Bergen 

Historic and Antiquarian Scenes in Brookh'n and \'icinit\-, T. VV. Field 

History of Long Island, Peter Ross 

Journal of a Voyage to New York in 1679-80, Jasper Dankcrs and Peter Skiyter, 
in the Publications of the Long Island Historical Society 

History of Flatbush in Kings County, Thomas M. Strong 

Historical Sketch of Brooklyn, J. T. Bailey 

Historic Buildings now standing in New York, Bank of Manhattan Company 

The Eagle and Brooklyn, edited by VV. B. Howard 

The Zabriskie Homestead, P. L. Schenck, M.D. 

Social Life in Flatbush, Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt 

The Stone House at Gowanus, Georgia Eraser 

Brooklyn's Neglected Battle-ground, Charles M. lliggins 

Historic Long Island, Rufus Rockwell Wilson 

The Eastern District of Brooklyn, Eugene L. Armbruster 

History of New York, Martha Lamb 

Breuckelen, Llarrington Putnam 

Leslie's History of Greater New York 

Indian Names in the Borough of Brooklyn, William Wallace 'Looker 

Miller's "New York as It Is" 

Pierrepont Genealogies, R. Burnham MoiTat 

History of the First Rt-fornied Church of Breuckelen, compiled by Henr_\- Whitte- 
more 

Reformed Dutch Church of Flatbush, Cornelius L. Wells 

Flatbush of To-da>', published on the Tricentennial of the Coming of the Dutch 
to Flatbush 

History of Plymouth Church, Noyes L. Thompson 

Sixty Years of Ph-mouth Church, Stephen M. Griswold 

Historical Sketch of Fulton Ferry, by a Director 

History in the Streets, Horace Graves 

Historic Homesteads of Kings County, Charles A. Ditmas 

Publications of the Long Island Historical Society 

BrookKn Daily Eagle 

Brooklyn Life 

Brooklyn Union 

Standard Union 

New York Herald 




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WHEN BREUCKELEN 
WAS YOUNG 



HE Rambler from the majestic height of Brooklyn 
Bridge peered through its network of steel, north, 
east, south, and west. New York lay behind him; 
the East River, on either side; beneath surged the 
river traffic; over the bridge were trolleys; and 
above two aeroplanes were dashing across the sky 
toward Manhattan. Of all these things he was 
conscious, but longest he turned toward Brooklyn; and, pressing 
back with one flash of the imagination every busy thoroughfare, 
every towering roof, every vestige of nineteenth-century progress, 
he thought of Brooklyn as she was in the middle of the seventeenth 
century, rich in maize-fields, sleepy as an aborigine, the turbulent 
tide of the East River unharnessed, its treacherous currents unspanned. 
The first step in the settlement of Brooklyn was made in the year 
1636, when William Adriaense Bennet and Jaques Bentyn bought from 
the Indians 930 acres of land at "Gowanus." About a year later 
George Jansen de Rapelje bought a piece of land lying near the Walla- 
bout Bay. De Rapelje was a farmer. He tilled his land, and occupied 
a house on it until about 1654. Tradition says his daughter Sarah 
was the first white child born on Long Island, and that she was held 
in great esteem both by the Dutch and the Indians. This assertion 
has been modified by later historians, who say that Sarah de Rapelje 
was the first female white child born in the New Netherlands colony. 
Cabins were built on the Long Island shore, and eventually com- 
munication was established with Manhattan by one Cornells Dircksen, 
who, having the advantage of holding land on both sides of the river, 
conducted a ferry between the two places. He was summoned by 
means of a horn that hung on a convenient tree, ready for the traveller 
to blow when he wished to cross. "The Ferry" on the Long Island 
shore later became the popular resort for the settlers. A road led 
from it to the Heights where the village of Breuckclen was thriving, 
which was supposed to have received its name from the Dutch, and 
means "broken land." It clustered close about the site of the present 
City Hall, and followed the course of Fulton Street, which no doubt 
was originally an Indian trail. 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 



Breuckelen passed through Indian troubles and through the tyranny 
of the regime of Director-General William Kieft, then into the ad- 
ministration of Peter Stuyvesant, who arrived in 1647, conspicuous 
for having one leg, the other having been lost in the wars and replaced 
with a wooden one, ostensibly laced with silver bands. He probably 
made an impression when he arrived, and the opinions formed of him 
were not exactly in his favor; for somebody, in watching the excited, 
soldierly old fellow, remarked that his stride was "like a peacock's, 
with great pomp and state," and complained that he kept the burghers 
bareheaded for several hours, though his own head was covered, 
"as if he were the Czar of Muscovy." 

Breuckelen passed through various vicissitudes of tax laws, politi- 
cal upiheavals, church establishments, and growth as a town, and at 
about the time of the Revolution she came to be known first as Brook- 
land and then as Brooklyn. She was fired by the Patriots' cause in 
1775. Her sons, grasping musket and bayonet, rushed to defend 
the colonies. Nor were these Patriots disheartened when the time 
came, at the close of the Revolutionary War, to gather up the 
threads of industry tangled by the British during their occupancy. 
Putting her shoulder firmly to the wheel, Brooklyn rallied her forces 
and industries along every line, and in half a century, in 1830, be- 
came a cit}'. 

Later came foreshadowings of the Civil War, made impressive by the 
prophetic words of Henry Ward Beecher. From forum and pulpit 
Beecher told of things as they were and as they would be. Slaves 
were sold in Plymouth Church, and the chains that bound them were 
held up by the great abolitionist on his pulpit platform to fire the 
hearts of his audience with hatred of the accursed institution. 

More than half a century ago the Civil W'ar was fought. To-day 
Brooklyn basks in the prosperity brought to her by the twentieth 
century. Still sheltered by her are quaint Dutch manors of the early 
settlers, still may be seen Revolutionary landmarks, still there are 
reminders of the Civil War. She is the Borough of Brooklyn, with 
more than two million inhabitants, known to the world as "the City 
of Churches," called by her own people "the City of Homes." 

THl': BAT'!'!,!-: AT '^'MK Ol.H STOV!-: MorSK A'l" COWWrS 

"Wc shall have with you in a few days four thousand men, which is all that 
we can arm and equip, and the people of New York, for whom we have great 
affection, can have no more than our all." — Maryland Council of Safety to the 
Nezv York delegates in Congress, Jvgvst 16, 177O, concerning the American 
troops that fought at the Stone House of Gozvanus. 

Maryland soldiers under Lord Stirling fought and died around the 
Stone House at Gowanus on the day when the first real battle of the 
Revolution occurred, August 27, 1776. On the preceding day Gen- 
eral Washington had viewed the works of defence nearest the British 
lines. It is altogether possible that he came to the Old Stone House, 
and that he surveyed the slopes of Gowanus, anxiously scanning 
them, seriously considering the situation. It is reported that he 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 



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OLD STONE HOUSE AT GOWANUS 

From a photograph by John L. Picrrepont in the collection of the Long Island Historical Society. 

was "very anxious" on the night preceding the battle of Long 
Island, that a premonition came to him of an attack both by land 
and by sea, and that after much restless tossing he finally affirmed 
that "the same Providence that rules to-day will rule to-morrow," 
and fell asleep. 

Of the morrow many tales are told, — tales of the battle of Brookhn 
and of this old house that felt the shock of cannon and saw brave men 
die. 

The Stone House at Gowanus no longer stands. Tenements have 
been built over the lands that formerly spread around it; and on the 
wall of one of them, located on the north-west corner of Fifth Avenue 
and Third Street, is a bronze tablet, depicting the scene of that event- 
ful battle, when scores of Maryland's sons fell. "The site," one reads 
beneath the battle-scene, "of the Old Cortclyou House on the Battle- 
field of Long Island. Here on the 27th of August, 1776, two hundred 
and fifty out of four hundred brav'c Maryland soldiers under the 
command of Lord Stirling were killed in combat with the British under 
Lord Cornwallis." 

This Old Stone House, which years after its erection came to play 
such a prominent part in the history of Long Island, was erected by 
Nicholas V'echte in 1699, and historians say it was the only stone house 






^ 




RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 



in Gowanus at the time he built it. \\ ell built, with walls several 
feet thick, it withstood this terrific siege in the War of the Revolution, 
and, when finally destroyed several years ago, Catling guns were 
necessary to force apart the stones of the structure. At the time 
Nicholas Vechte built it, momentous events were coming to pass; 
and the very year of its erection the notorious Captain Kidd sailed 
to Easthampton, Long Island, and buried treasure there. 

Stirling set out from the Stone House at three o'clock on the morn- 
ing of the 27th to face the British. He advanced along Fifth Avenue, 
past Greenwood (Lookout) Hill, to meet the enemy, who had several 
days before landed at Gravesend and Fort Hamilton. The British 
in the mean time were directing their lines against the Stone House. 
The detachments met in the early morning near the border of 
Greenwood Woods. Washington and the people of Brooklyn had 
been aroused by the rattle of musketry. General Washington was in 
his saddle at dawn, hastening toward the Brooklyn lines, where 
he beheld the slaughter of Lord Stirling's men, fighting against 
Cornwallis. At that moment there was being fought what John Fiske 
calls the first real battle of the Revolution, beginning with an engage- 
ment between Grant and Stirling at Greenwood and concluding with 
that between Cornwallis and Stirling at the Old Stone House of 
Gowanus. 

Hour after hour the storm of fire from cannon, muskets, and rifles 
continued between Grant and Stirling. The patriot general held 
his own until word reached him that Sullivan had fallen and been 
made a prisoner by the Hessians, while the British army was advanc- 
ing on his rear. The Old Stone House was occupied by Cornwallis 
and his troops. Taking a chance in a thousand of saving himself 
and his men, Stirling directed his forces toward routing the British 
general. Time and again the brave Americans stormed the house; 
and, though guns had been placed both within the house and 
without, with each charge the enemy fell back. Victory seeined 
inevitable for Stirling, but just at the turn in his favor Cornwallis 
received reinforcements. Stirling knew that escape was impossible, 
for every way had been closed. Signalling for six companies of a 
Maryland regiment of riflemen to join him, he once more turned on 
the British, and with his men faced the rain of English bullets until 
two hundred and fifty-six of the Marylanders were dead. Then 
Lord Stirling blindly fled across the hills, where, refusing to surrender 
to a British general, he sought out in Prospect Woods the Hessian 
general, De Heister, and was sent a prisoner to the British flagship 
Eagle, with other prisoners of war. 

Darkness fell on the ill-fated August 27. Rain and fog set in; and 
General Washington, fearing that the British fleet would sail up the 
East River and cut off his forces on Long Island, resolved on a retreat. 
Only the sound of the sentinel's footfall broke the stillness of the 
night. At the foot of what is now Fulton Street, preparations were 
being made for embarking. Suddenly the hush of midnight was broken 
by the boom of a solitary cannon. 

"We are lost," said an aide to Washington. 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




NEW ^ORK BAY FROM BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 

From a painting by Miss M. L. Sneden in the collection of the Long Island Historical Society. 

They tell a story of Airs. John Rapclje, whose husband was a noto- 
rious Royalist. PVom the gathering of boats on the shore and the 
unusual movements of the American troops, Mrs. Rapelje surmised 
that they meant flight; and, summoning a negro slave, she sent him 
to inform Lord Howe of these facts. A Hessian sentinel stopped the 
slave, and, unable to understand his language, the sentinel detained 
him as a spy until morning, when only the empty entrenchments of the 
patriots remained to tell of their escape. 

Four years later Nicholas Vechte moved from his substantial 
stone house, having sold the Gowanus estate to Jaques Cortelyou, by 
whose name the house has very frequently been called. 



A ROMANCl-: OF MELROSE ABBEY 

Time has swept away the broad lawns and drooping trees that 
once made the famous Melrose Abbey picturesque. It even in 
later years moved the Abbe}' itself from the lovely lane that led 
up to it; for, when the late Dr. Homer L. Bartlett purchased the 
property, he removed the house from the east side of the lane to a 
spot east of Bedford Avenue, where it remained until its destruction 
several years ago. 

In the days of the Revolution this old colonial place, built man}' 
years before, was the home of Colonel William Axtell, a Tory, who 
purchased it from Mr. Lane, an Englishman; and it was called 
far and near Melrose Hall, famous for its broad lawns and flower-beds. 
its wide halls, gilded drawing-rooms, and elaborate parties. For 
Lane himself, who about 1749 had built this house, so difl'erent from 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




MELROSE ABBEY 

the usual Dutch style of architecture, had led a merry life at the 
Hall; and Colonel Axtell, who purchased the property on Lane's 
death, was no mean host. 

Proud old Colonel Axtell was of ancient lineage, a descendant of 
that Colonel Daniel Axtell who had been in Cromwell's army, and 
who, scorning the benefits of the ''general pardons and obligations" 
set forth later by the Parliament, was beheaded by the order of 
Charles II. Years after this proud old Colonel William Axtell's 
property had been confiscated, and after Bateman Lloyd, an Ameri- 
can army officer, had lived there, Anna Cora Mowatt, a well-known 
actress and novelist, spent five years on the estate, which in her auto- 
biography she recalls very pleasantly and names Melrose Abbey. It is, 
however, around Colonel \\'illiam Axtell that the most stirring scenes 
of the c)ld Hall gather, — scenes recalled by the grim days of the 
Revolution; for the smoke of war-clouds hung heavy over Melrose 
Hall, and the din of battle surged without and within its borders and 
involved the fate of a \-(Uing girl, Eliza Shipton, niece of Colonel 
Axtell's wife. 

Days followed when the avenue of while pines resounded with the 
tread of British soldiers; for Colonel Axtell not only welcomed them 
to Long Island, but he threw open the doors of his home, that the 
I'ory leaders might enter. Axtell himself was a member of the 
King's Council, and for his adherence to the British cause was made 
a colonel in Sir William Howe's arm\'. If time could have made a 
dictagraph of the hours, it would have recorded late revels, alluring 
music, dancing feet, tales of pro-British plots, and the clank of chains 
binding the I'atriot ]^risoners conceakxl in the dunueons of Melrose 
Hall. 

\'ears later only brave travellers frecjuented the old Platbush road 
after nightfall; and many tales were told of cries heard in the Hall, 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 



and of a white-faced young girl who flitted from room to room and 
peered from the upper windows down the avenue of pines, sobbing 
with the pines and restlessly pacing through the night. Years after 
all these things the bones of a woman were found in the dungeon in 
the cellar where so many brave Patriots, brought to the merciless 
Axtell, had died. She may have been the white-faced girl who, 
travellers say, watched during the night, and cried out in her loneliness 
from the upper rooms. 

Early in the war, when the subtle Axtell was entertaining the 
British within his house, there were many gay functions at the Hall, — 
brilliant balls, brilliant suppers, — such gayety as modest Flatbush 
had never known. And into these scenes of music and romance 
walked young Aquila Giles, who met and loved Eliza Shipton, niece 
of the mistress of the Hall. Affairs went smoothly for a time, and 
under the white pines walked in serene happiness the lovers, the 
broad lawns and misty fountains making their way pleasant as they 
strolled. What might have happened had Aquila Giles kept from 
Colonel Axtell his regard for the lovely girl and his sympathy for the 
Patriot cause cannot be surmised. He declared both. The sumptu- 
ous gatherings at Melrose Hall went on, but without Aquila Giles; 
for in wrath the stern old adherent of the king had forbidden him 
to enter its doors again. 

A party of British officers were being entertained by Colonel Axtell 
a few days previous to the battle of Brooklyn, and from the Heights 
an American gunner threw a shell into the house, causing damage. 
After the battle of Long Island until the close of the war Flatbush 
was in the hands of the British, who, invariably insolent, were a 
veritable thorn to the people of the town. It was Captain William 
Marrener, an American, who among others was paroled in Flat- 
bush, and who after his release resolved to be avenged for the 
treatment given by the enemy. In a whale-boat, with a picked 
crew, he sailed by night into Gravesend Bay from Jersey, and 
thence led his men to Flatbush, where, having made four parties, 
four houses of the town were assailed, among them Colonel 
Axtell's. The doors of Melrose Hall were battered down, but the 
colonel was not there, having previously gone to New York. It 
is said by an authority that the capture would have been difficult, 
for the old Hall had many a secret stairway, closet, and vault, 
which none knew better than the man who planned them "for the 
glory of God and the king." 

Aquila Giles, who had joined the American army and risen to the 
rank of colonel, returned to Flatbush at the end of the war, to make 
Eliza Shipton his wife. Melrose Hall was confiscated by the govern- 
ment, and advertised to be sold by public auction. It was purchased 
on October 21, 1784, by Colonel Aquila Giles, who led his bride over 
the threshold from which he had been turned away, into the Hall 
where she when a girl, his betrothed, waited for him during the weary 
days of the war. 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




ERASMUS HALL JN 1S26 
From a photograph made by Allen B. Doggett from the original painting. 



ERASMUS MALI,. AN EARL^' SEv\T OE LEARNING 

Behind the Erasmus Hall High School its old parent Erasmus 
Hall still stands on Elatbush Avenue, Brooklyn. Alany years ago, 
Dr. John H. Livingston came to Elatbush, and aided by influential 
men of the town, agitated for better education. Dr. Livingston hoped 
that this school might form the nucleus for a theological school that 
he wished to establish. He came to Elatbush during the summer of 
1786, and his students of theology came with him. Senator John 
Vanderbilt became interested in Dr. Livingston's suggestion to have a 
school in the town other than the village school in the heart of Elat- 
bush, and together they set to work to obtain the support of other 
influential men. They finally won to the cause Jacob LeflFerts, Joris 
Alartense, Peter Lefferts, Johannes E. Lott, William B. Giff'ord, Peter 
Cornell, Matthew Clarkson, Aquila Giles, Garret Martense, Cornelius 
Vanderveer, and Justice John Vanderbilt. 

A subscription paper was started, and it was not long before a spot 
was chosen for the new school in the centre of the village on Alain 
Road (now Elatbush Avenue), opposite the court-house and near the 
place where the village school-house stood. 

1787 was a busy year for the Elatbush men. Logs were hauled 
from neighboring farms for the new school, and men from far and 
near helped in the building. They named it Erasmus Hall, for De- 
siderius Erasmus, the Dutch scholar who during Ilcnr}' \ IIEs time 
brought the "New Learning" to England. 




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RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 



The governor of the State, members of the Assembly, and many 
residents of Flatbush attended the first public exhibition held at 
Erasmus Hall, on September 27, 1787. Previously application had 
been made to the Regents of the University of the State of New York 
for a charter, which, subsequently granted, placed Erasmus Hall 
first on the list of secondary schools to receive such a charter. 

About this time the directors turned to Dr. Livingston for guidance, 
and in addition to his duties as pastor in New York City he accepted 
the principalship of the new academy — without salary. The year 
following its erection the trustees announced that, "as this institution 
was designed to be a superior common school, the Board resolved 
that no scholar be admitted into the Hall but such as have begun to 
read and write." The fee was fixed at a half guinea, and the 
tuition fee for instruction in English was placed at £3 loj. For 
instruction in other departments the fee was one guinea, and the tui- 
tion fee six pounds. 

The trustees from the first were anxious that the scholars at 
Erasmus Hall should have a well-equipped library, and the year 
following its opening (1788) each language pupil was assessed one 
dollar, to go toward buying books. It appears that some of the 
parents of the pupils objected to this scheme, so this plan of get- 
ting a library was abandoned. The trustees next turned to the 
regents for an equipment, and in this their pleas were successful; 
for a record of Alay 2, 1791, shows that 115 books had been given, 
also one thermometer, one barometer, one small magnet, an elec- 
trical apparatus, a theodolite and chair, Hadley's quadrant, a small 
telescope, two prisms, and a case of drawing instruments. The 
head teacher, John Todd, was appointed to care for the books, 
among which were "Paradise Lost," Goldsmith's "Roman History" 
and his "Animated Nature," Johnson's Dictionary, and the Rambler 
and Spectator. 

From far and near pupils came to the new school. Some of them 
even came from other States, and the records show that there were 
a good number of boarding pupils, and that the number increased 
to such an extent that the rooms at the school were tilled, and some 
of the students sought board among the neighboring farms. It was 
fortunate that the residents of Flatbush — all of them well-to-do — 
were kindly disposed toward the new-comers, for they opened their 
homes to them. Twenty pounds a year was the cost of board, room, 
and washing. There is hardly a question that these youths of early 
l^rasmus Hall did play their pranks, though nothing worse than steal- 
ing apples is on record against ihem. Mr. J. J^axter, of Flatlands, has 
an interesting note in his diar\' of October 13, 1792, to this effect: 
"Went to the meeting to the cluircli about the Academ\' bows, who 
had played the d — 1." 

Erasmus Hall in 1896 was transferred to the cit\' of Brookh'n, 
and in 1905 the new Erasmus Hall High Schocjl was begun. The 
hrsi and present principal was Dr. Walter Balfour (lunnison. 
The parent building stands close behind its progen\' on Flatbush 
Avenue, as though shielded from the too curious gaze of the public; 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

and, if an old building can think, it probably wonders concerning the 
changes that have come about in Platbush. 

The Reformed Church of Flatbush, used as a hospital for the 
wounded soldiers during the Revolution, for years was closely associ- 
ated with Erasmus Hall. Its steeple bell, which gave the first warning 
of the coming of the British to the town, still hangs in the Dutch 
Reformed Church across the way. 

THE LEFFERTS HOUSE AND TALES OF STEINBOKKERY 
POND 

"There's Senator Lefferts across the street in his homespun suit that made 
the statesmen at Albany jealous when he was there. His wife spun every 
thread of it." — John Baxter's Diary, lygo. 

The old Lefterts house, having been occupied by eight generations 
of Lefferts, is still owned by the family. It stands at 563 Flatbush 
Avenue, unchanged, ver}' different from the modern buildings in 
that part of Brooklyn; and, shaded by great trees set in emerald 
lawns, it might well announce to the hundreds that pass it daily, "I 
have occupied this site for more than two hundred and fifty years." 
On the landing of the British at Bath in August of 1776, when the 
American riflemen, toward evening, saw the enemy approaching, they 
set fire to stacks of grain in Flatbush and also burned this house. 
Its foundations were saved, and in a short time was reared the dwelling 
that now occupies the site. The land on which it stands was granted 
to Lefferts Pietersen Van Hagewout, who came to this country in 
1660 and settled in Flatbush. He received a deed in parchment a 
year later, signed by Peter Stuyvesant. 

The Lefferts family has been a prominent one and closely associated 
with the growth of Flatbush. John Lefferts, a grandson of the 
original settler, was judge of the Court of Sessions and Common Pleas, 
and was a count}' judge for a number of years. He was a town clerk 
of Flatbush and delegate to the Provincial Congress. His son Peter 
was a State senator and a judge of the Court of Sessions and Common 
Pleas, one of the first trustees of the Reformed Protestant Dutch 
Church in Flatbush, and a large contributor toward the erection 
of Erasmus Hall, to which he subscribed sixty pounds and of which 
he was one of the trustees. He was a prominent Patriot. 

An interesting tradition concerning property of a later member of 
the family, Mr. John Lefferts, is told by Mr. Daniel M. Treadwell. 
This property was Steinbokkery Pond, once near Bedford Avenue, 
which covered a surface area of about two acres and was owned by 
Mr. John Lefferts in i860. About this pond the Indians wove tales; 
and the Algonkins, of whom the Flatbush Canarsies were a sub-tribe, 
believed that springs, brooks, and ponds were gifts of the Great Spirit, 
hence sacred. Probably many of these tales were heard by the whites, 
and Steinbokkery Pond came in for its share of superstition. One 
Joris Van Nyse asserted that the Steinbokkery was a breeding-place 
for sea-serpents and ghosts, and he further declared that one night, 



R A M BLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




LEFFERTS I lOMESTEAD 

At 563 Flatbush Avenue, Flatbusli, Brooklyn. Built before 1776 and still standing. 

when he was returning home from Ben Nelson's in Flatbush, on 
Clove Road, near the bridge, he saw four or five great serpents come 
out of the pond, their heads blazing flame, and that they followed the 
creek toward the ocean. 

Mr. John Leff"erts said that in the fall of the year he had seen 
phosphorescent lights rising from the swamp and marshes about the 
pond, but, like many of his neighbors, he was not disturbed by the 
phenomenon. The country folk were the ones who saw visions and 
wove tales of a supernatural nature about old Steinbokkery, interpret- 
ing what they saw as forerunners of some great calamity. The 
Indians in their turn believed that the pond was the home of fire 
dragons, and that these monsters flew from one pond to another. 

"One of the most charming men I ever saw," continues Mr. Tread- 
well, "was Mr. John Lefferts. He was a factor in all of the affairs of 
Flatbush for half a century. He was 6 ft. 4 in. tall and proportion- 
ately powerful, and was as kind and gentle as a child, — but no trifling. 
At one time a donkey domesticated in his faniily for the pleasure of 
his children refused to go into an adjoining pasture. No persuasion 
could persuade him to move an inch. Mr. Lefferts wasted no time in 
expostulating with the reluctant beast, but seized him by the tail and 
nape of the neck and threw him bodily ini(j the adjoining field." 

This homestead has been the inspiration from which has sprung 
the plans of a number of summer cottages. In fact, some of the 
most attractive modern suburban homes arc adaptations of these old 
Dutch homesteads. Not a few of the "Queen Cottages" are almost 
pure Dutch. Could we trace back the history of the architect's plan 
we would find its beginnings in an old Dutch home. 



13 



R A M B L E S ABOUT HISTORIC BR O O K L Y N 




ZABRISKIE HOMESTEAD IN 1839 
From "Historical Sketch of the Zabriskie Homestead," by Dr. P. L. Schenck. 



THE ZABRISKIE HOMESTEAD AND ABIGAH. LEI'FERTS' 

Bateman Lloyd wooed lovely Abigail Lefferts almost under the very 
eyes of her father, at whose house on the corner of the cross-roads 
he was billeted for meals when a prisoner in Flatbush. The young 
officer, only nineteen years old when the war began, advanced from 
the rank of lieutenant to that of captain in the American army, and 
remained in the town a prisoner from February 27, 1776, until April 
I, 1 78 1. Though probably lodged for the greater part of the time as 
prisoner in the county jail, he was given the freedom of certain parts 
of the town; and it is not strange that during his solitary walks he met 
Miss Abigail, whose beauty had attracted him at her father's house. 
To be sure, Mr. Lefferts was a Tory, and there may have loomed 
before the lovers the monstrous prejudices they would have to over- 
come. 

How the love affair would have progressed, had it not been for an 
uncle of Abigail's who had no Tory scruples, cannot be surmised. It 
is safe to assume that the youthful prisoner broke his parole, and that 
the most of his courtship was done at the home of the young woman's 
uncle, Mr. Jacobus Vandeventer. She left home one afternoon 
ostensibly to call on her relative, whose home was near what is now 
Mount \ ernon Avenue and the main street. A clergyman happened 
there at the same time, also Mr. Bateman Lloyd. The following 

14 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

morning Mr. Vandeventer appeared at the home of Mr. Jacob 
Lefferts, on the corner of what is now Fhubush and Church Avenues, 
then known as the cross-roads. 

"Is Abby at your house.^" asked Mr. Lefferts. 

"Yes, and her husband also," was the unexpected response. "Now, 
now, now," he may have continued, on seeing wrath flame up in the 
good Tory's face, "better allow them to go in peace." 

The family was soon reconciled, the young couple given a paternal 
blessing, and Mr. Jacob Lefferts and his son-in-law became friends for 
life. 

Mr. Lefferts's house was sacked and robbed by Hessians during 
the Revolutionary War. Word had come to him that the redcoats 
were not far distant. The family were about to eat dinner, and, 
leaving their meal untouched, they took only time enough to drop the 
family silver down the well. The house was one of the first seized 
by the enemy when the troops entered the town. The Lefferts family 
went to stay with friends at Jamaica; and later, on returning to 
Flatbush, they found their house and furniture in a state of con- 
fusion and wreck. Realizing they were at the mercy of a merciless 
enemy, they took the oath of allegiance to King George. 

This old house has come down in history as the Zabriskie homestead, 
named for the well-known family who own the estate at the present 
time. The early history of the house is not known. Tradition 
says it was older than the old Stryker house that stood opposite, 
constructed about 1696. Changes were made in the homestead when 
Jacob Lefferts bought it, and he largely rebuilt it. A Dr. Newbury 
may have been the first owner, prior to the occupancy of Jacob Lefferts, 
who in his turn in 1802 conveyed the estate to his son-in-law, Bateman 
Lloyd. Under the Zabriskie ownership the estate was broken up, and 
residences erected for members of the family. 

A famous linden-tree stood by the side of the house, and beneath 
it, during Revolutionary times. Major David Lenox, when urged 
by his brothers to abandon the Patriot cause and swear allegiance to 
King George, firmly refused. "I will never do it," he asserted, with 
tears in his eyes. The tree perished during a severe winter, and the 
homestead some years ago gave way to a later Zabriskie home. All 
that remains of old associations is a cluster of aged honeysuckle on 
the lawn. 

THK \A\ Pl':i;i' MANOR HOUSK 

The Van Pelt Manor House has been standing In \'an Pelt Manor 
since 1664, and has always been owned and occupied b}' members of 
the \'an Pelt family. So prominent has this family been in the town 
that the name of Van Pelt Manor has for many years been given to 
this part of Brooklyn. Mrs. Townsend Cortelyou Van Pelt, who 
lives at the Manor House, is a direct descendant of Sarah de Rapelje, 
the first female white child born in New Netherlands. Near her home, 
in front of the Reformed Dutch Church, is the New Utrecht liberty 
pole, bearing high an ancient eagle and a weather-vane spelling 

IS 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




\.\N I'l'.l.r M \\< )R 



"liberty." The late Townsend C. Van Pelt took great pride in the 
preservation of both eagle and pole. They mark the spot over which 
the American flag first waved in the town of New LItrecht on the 
evacuation of the British in 1783. On the green in front of the church 
the townspeople assembled, and cannon were fired and patriotic 
demonstrations were made. This spot, sacred to liberty, has been 
marked by four poles. The first, second, and third were given by 
descendants of those who fought for freedom, and the fourth was 
given to the Liberty Pole Association by Mr. and Mrs. Townsend C. 
Van Pelt. The eagle surmounting the pole is the original one, raised 
more than a century and a quarter ago. It is made of wood, and 
measures five feet from wing to wing. Wind and weather weakened 
it considerably, and it has been strengthened by iron bands on the 
wings and an iron bill and legs. Nobody knows where the eagle came 
from or who made it. Though many a locality has started a move- 
ment for a similar liberty pole, this one in New Utrecht is said to be the 
only one of its kind in this country; and year after year it has served 
as a constant reminder of the Revolution, and has never been allowed 
to fall. 

In front of the libert\' pole stands the old Reformed Dutch 
Church, of New L trecht, which we have learned was used during 
the War of the Revolution by the British as a hospital and a riding- 
school. 

The Manor House fronts on what was King's Highway, which led 
from New York to the South. An old milestone, relic of George I Us 
time, is even now on the corner. They say it is one of the few re- 
maining milestones in Kings County. Along the old King's Highway 
passed the travel of the day between Long Island and Philadelphia. 

16 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




milestoxp: at van pelt manor 



Washington rode over the old highway in 1790, and was greeted in 
New Utrecht by the village people. There was great excitement when 
word came that the general was shortly to arrive. From the little 
school-house near Van Pelt Manor the school-children were hustled 
home for fresh linen and face-washings and hair-combings; and they 
were as quickly marched back, dressed in new clothes and company 
manners, for the great George Washington would pass their way. 
At last, after many anxious scannings of the road, they saw him riding 
toward the little school-house, and the children lined up and waited 
until he approached. Little Peter Van Pelt was on the end of the 
line, and he was the last boy to whom George Washington spoke; 
and to little Peter he looked very tall, as he came near to him and laid 
his hand on Peter's head. 

"Be a good boy, my son," said Washington, "and you will be a 
good man." 

Little Peter Van Pelt probably remembered this admonition, but 
how far it shaped his life's course is not known. Me did grow up to 
be a good and a great man, entering the ministry and achieving fame 
throughout the county. When Washington died, Peter \ an Pelt 
delivered a sermon wherein he extolled the great general and I'rcsi- 
dent; and this sermon was printed in something like a twelve-page 
leaflet. Only a short time ago a single copy of the discourse was 
sold for five hundred dollars. 

The Van Pelts were stanch to the American cause during the days 
of the Revolution, and Rem X'aii i\'ll anti his brother Aert were arrested 

17 







:^^ 



Vy 



:-'-' 


u 


I^T"* 


^ 







R A M BLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

on suspicion by the British authorities and placed in jail. With them 
also were a Colonel Rutgert Van Brunt, of Gravesend, and his brother 
Adrian. Colonel Van Brunt bribed his jailer, and the four men suc- 
ceeded in getting a midnight interview, during which they planned to 
tell the same story concerning the night when they were supposed to 
see certain American officers who were endeavoring to capture officers 
of the British. When examined, they were found not guilty, and were 
freed. As a matter of fact, they did know of plans under way to trick 
the British, and to this day is pointed out the window in the Van 
Pelt IManor House at which the American captain knocked that night 
w^hen he told Rem Van Pelt's father of his hopes for success in the work 
against the enemy. 

There is a sun-dial on the green in front of the Van Pelt Manor 
House, and a white fence shields the garden from the whirl of the 
twentieth century. The house is low and white, and within and with- 
out it tells tales of the old Dutch settlers. There are storied blue tiles 
about a fireplace. They say that even in Holland there are no older 
tiles than these. The rooms are low, and everywhere are pictures and 
books and interesting things that make a home. 

BEXSOMR RST AND WASHINGTON; CLAWS APPLEJACK 

An old millstone, worn smooth by time, lies in front of the hospitable 
door of Bensonhurst. Years ago this stone was brought from Holland, 
and, after passing decades in faithful service, was finally preserved 
as a unique threshold for the ancient house that has been famous for 
the welcome given its guests. Bensonhurst stands near Gravesend 
Bay, between what is now Benson Avenue and Bay 24th Street. 
Near the homestead the British landed in Revolutionary times, and 
far and wide spread themselves over the town, regarding personal 
property as lightly as they might a wisp of hay driven by the wind 
across their march. 

Nicholas Cowenhoven built the house more than a hundred years 
ago. His grand-daughter Maria married Egbert Benson, and since 
that time until within a few years, from generation to generation, 
the Bensons lived and kept the latch-string out in their house by the 
sea. The family became prominent in affairs of State, which they 
served with honor. Fighting Anthony Benson gave his life for his 
country in the Revolutionary War, during which he was taken prisoner, 
and confined in the old prison-ship Jersey, where he died from starva- 
tion and disease and was buried in Wallabout Bay. 

Bensonhurst has opened her doors to many a distinguished guest. 
General Washington was a frequent visitor there; and Mrs. Margaret 
Benson Berry, daughter of the late (George Benson, has rare old plates 
that were used when the first President of the United States dined 
in her old home. Washington was fond of leisurely partaking of his 
excellent meal, of praising it, and afterward he found pleasure in walk- 
ing arm in arm with his host down to the beach where the shad for 
which New Utrecht was then famous were caught. He probably 
lingered there to see this and that fisherman draw out his shad. This 

19 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 


















mj 



-^frjf 



BENSONHURST 

From a photograph owned by Mrs. Jolin F. Berry. 

home must have been a quiet retreat for the great man, though 
before and after a visit there he was accustomed to meet the 
groups that gathered to see and speak with him. 

Henry Clay Hked Bensonhurst, and the elder Benson was a hrm 
friend and admirer of his. There is a tradition that they enjoyed many 
a pipe and bottle of applejack together, and to-day Mrs. Berry has 
a bottle of the very applejack that came from Clay's plantation in 
the South. This is evidently a bottle that Clay and the elder Benson 
overlooked, or else it may have been sent by the latter after one of 
his visits to the homestead. 

At Bensonhurst Martha Lamb wrote much of her History of New 
\ ork, gaining inspiration in the quiet of the old homestead and 
historical facts from the old families of the vicinity by whom she was 
received. 

"Welkom," the quaint motto that hung in the hall at Bensonhurst, 
now hangs in Mr. and Mrs. Berry's home in St. John's Place; and 
the homestead itself was some years ago sold to Mr. Walter E. Parfitt, 
who still resides there with his family. The house has been changed 
to suit the needs of the present owners. The Dutch oven, in which 
so many famous dinners were cooked, still stands in the old kitchen. 
The attic has hand-hewn rafters put together with wooden pegs; 
and many of the rooms, especially in the second story of the house, 
are quaint and rambling, with nooks and crannies that are found only 
in houses of long ago. In the rooms still linger memories of the old, 
old days when Washington came, and Clay, passing across the old 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




\AN BRUNT HOUSE 

millstone and on over the threshold of the door bearing its hospitable 
"Welkom/' 

ABOUT A LOST SUNBONNKT AND HOW AHSTRESS \A\ 
BRUNT CONQUERED Till'". BRmSlI IN THE \ AN 

BRUM^ HnMl'STI'", \n 

W ithin gunshot of this old house was fought the first battle of the 
Revolutionary War. Within a good stone's throw of it 15,000 
British soldiers and 40 pieces of cannon were landed on August 22, 
1776. Almost past its very doors surged the stream of red-coated 
soldiers on their way to quell the rebellious colonists. The first 
Van Brunt of New Utrecht came from the New Netherlands in the 
seventeenth century. He was a well-known citizen of the town, 
which he served in various ways; and he was one of the hosts when 
Attorney-(]eneral Nicasius De Sillc visited the village early in the 
year of 1660, and this first Van Brunt with his neighbors assisted in 
giving their distinguished guest a good dinner and entertainment. 

I'his Van Brunt house was built nearh' two centuries and a half 
ago. It now stands at 1752 S4th Street, New Utrecht, in very 
different surroundings from the emerald green of the meadows that 
bounded it in the earl\- da\'s; for a city has crept up to its c]uaint 
old door, to its trees and shrubbery and rose-bushes. 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 



One Mistress Van Brunt, whose husband joined the Patriots in 
Revolutionary days, gathered together her slaves and her children 
when she heard that the British were landing in New Utrecht. She 
was a resourceful woman and quick to act; and, as her slaves crowded 
about her, she bade one of them harness a horse. Into the cart she 
hustled her servants and her children; and without stopping to look 
after her hens or her cows or other live-stock, or even to lock up her 
house, she bade the driver whip up the horse, and away the Van Brunt 
family sped toward New Lotts. They were driving at a smart trot 
over the King's Highway, not yet out of sight of home, and not so far 
away but that they could see the redcoats emerging in line up the road, 
when one little Van Brunt girl lost her sunbonnet. She set up a terrible 
ado about it, and was far more concerned about its loss than she 
was about the lengthening line of redcoats that were marching close 
behind the steed that was drawing her to New Lotts. In the midst 
of the confusion the slave stopped the horse, rescued the sunbonnet, 
and, concealed in its depths, the little Van Brunt girl snugly retreated. 
In the mean time the British were swarming over New Utrecht. 

No sooner had Mistress Van Brunt arrived in New Lotts than she 
regretted her hasty retreat, and it was not long before she made up 
her mind to go home. She arrived with slaves and children. Soldiers 
were everywhere, and there was an unusual number of them in the 
Van Brunt house. It fairly bristled with crimson uniforms. 

"What are you doing here.'"' she demanded of one of them as she 
walked into her kitchen. 

"We live here," explained an oiTicer. "This is our house." 

"Indeed it is not," snapped Mistress Van Brunt. "This is my 
house, and I have brought my family home. If you must have part 
of it, you must, but you'll have to make room for m}' family and for 
me." 

So she moved in, and the soldiers allotted her a portion of the 
house; and from all reports, after a formal understanding, they dwelt 
together under the same roof in peace and harmony, as the poets say. 

"\\'hcre are my cows.''" demanded the lad}', pursuing the formal 
understanding to the letter. 

"Your cows, madam.'' You have no cows," returned the officer. 
"They arc our cows, and they have been turned into a common 
pasture." 

""^'our cows, indeed!" asserted the lad}'. "How do you think this 
baby is to be fed.'' Tell me that! I need a cow, and I need it right 
away." 

The officer may have shrugged his shoulders, but he event uall_\- led 
the way to the cow pasture; and Mistress Van Brunt surveyed the 
herd, and carefully selected an excellent one of the number, which 
she drove home — and kept. 

For a long time Mistress Van Brunt and her family and the British 
soldiers dwelt in their various portions of the homestead. After the 
war one of the Van Brunt girls married a British soldier, and with him 
went to li\e in Maryland. When the war-clouds had long passed, Mr. 
\'an Brunt while visiting his daughter died and was buried in Maryland. 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




ivi- '■'"'.'■ 



LADY DEBORAH MOODY IIULM^ 



Mistress Van Brunt was one day brushing her husband's coat which 
her daughter had sent back to her, when there fell from the pockets 
several nuts, which she planted in the grounds near her house. These 
nuts grew into trees, and the last of their number was standing until 
recently. 

The Van Brunt homestead is still owned by the \'an Brunt family, 
though none of the descendants occupy it. Mrs. Barbara Dawson 
lives there, and takes great pride in the old kitchen with its quaint 
fireplace, in its low-ceilinged rooms, in the rose garden and the pict- 
uresque shrubbery that surrounds it, and in the vines that clamber 
to the very eaves. "This house is very old," says Mrs. Dawson, 
"and thev saA" C^icneral Washing-ton once staved here." 



^j-. b()\\i:rik of lady moody, a scene of early 

l)iSSi:\Sl().\S AND INDIAN TR()rrJd':S 

This quaint old house stands, half-hidden by hedges, shrubbery 
and cherry-trees, on Neck Road in (iravcsend, midway between 
Cjravesend Avenue and Van Sicklen Street. Opposite in the old 
graveyard, it is said. Lady Moody is buried, but the identit\- of the 
nameless stone supposed to mark her grave has never been proved, 
any more than has the fact that the beautiful old house was ever 
occupied b\- the graiul dame herself of the I'".iiglish colon}-. Lad\- 
Deborah Mood\' was several times an exile. 1 ler troubles seem to 
have begun in England at the time of her husband's death, in 1632, 
when his independent widow did a number of things that did not 

^3 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

become a woman of her times. She went to London, and evidently 
became interested in rehgious matters; for she overstayed the time 
that a non-resident should remain. She was ordered to return to 
her own home, and her case was taken up by the Star Chamber, 
which kept the search-light of the law on the Lady Deborah until, 
seeking for civil and religious liberty, she decided to emigrate with 
her son. Sir Henry Moody, the second. They came to America. 
Probably this country loomed before them as a land of promise, 
where, if a woman had opinions of her own, they were hers for the 
thinking. In Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1640 Lady Deborah Moody 
united with the church. She appears to have been respected by the 
community, and shortly after her arrival a grant of land amounting to 
about four hundred acres was given her by the General Court, and the 
following year she paid £1,100 for the farm. 

Roger Williams appeared in the colony, and, whether from his teach- 
ings or from the reasonings of her own fertile brain, the Lady Deborah's 
religious views took a sudden turn from her neighbors' trend of belief. 
And it was not long before she was excommunicated from the church 
because she was convinced that the baptism of infants was not of divine 
ordinance. 

With a party of English colonists the Lady Deborah came to New 
Amsterdam in 1643, and settled in Gravesend. The house was 
probably built in that year. The grant to her and her associates 
from Governor Kieft comprised Coney Island and all of Gravesend 
and Sheepshead Bay. 

There is a question on the part of authorities as to whether the old 
house on the Neck Road was really owned and occupied by this 
woman of royal lineage. Some authorities claim that the house 
which she built and in which she lived was a mile farther up Neck 
Road. Still, as time passed, this beautiful cottage came to be known 
as "Ye Bowerie of Lady Moody," and it is true that it stands on land 
formerly granted to this distinguished Englishwoman and her follow- 
ers. Contention also has arisen as to how the town got its name. 
Some say that Governor Kieft named it S'Gravensande, after a sea 
town on the river Maas, and that the name means Count's Beach, 
graven signifying count, and sande a sandy beach. Still others say 
that the town was named for Gravesend In England. Lady Moody 
was influential in the colony which she strove to establish, and her 
bravery when the Indian troubles arose is recorded. She was in- 
fluential in government affairs with both Kieft and Peter Stuyvesant. 
The latter with his wife was entertained at the home of Lady Moody, 
and Mrs. Stuyvesant was agreeably impressed by the charming English- 
woman. When Governor Stuyvesant was troubled by affairs of 
state, he went to Lady Moody for advice, and matters were helped 
by the lady herself nominating a magistrate for Gravesend. 

The internal troubles in the little colony presided over by Lady 
Deborah Moody were mostly caused by the Indians, who were par- 
ticularly troublesome from the very first. Her house was the 
chosen point of the savages for attack. Every precaution was 
taken for defence, and every man went to his work armed, and 

24 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

every person in the colony turned his hand to the building of a paHsade 
for protection. The fiercest attack occurred in 1655, when the sturdy 
settlers held out against the enemy until help was sent from New 
Amsterdam. Records show that the English settlers tried to deal 
honestly with the redskins, and even after Kieft's second patent 
they purchased the lands of Gravesend for "one blanket, one gun, 
one kettle." 

The nameless headstone in the old town churchyard across from 
the "bowerie" of Lady IMoody may or may not mark her resting- 
place. Traditions say that she was driven from her colony by the 
Indian ravages, and they say also that her handful of followers 
married into the Dutch families and that the identity of the 
English colony was lost. The son, Sir Henr\', drifted to Virginia. 

THE VOORHEES HOMESTEAD IN THE CELLAR OF 
WHICH TRADITION SAYS. A HESSIAN SOLDIER WAS 
BURII'.n 

"8^ miles to Brockland Ferry," says the old milestone in front of 
the Voorhees homestead on Neck Road, Gravesend. The old stone 
was placed there under the English provincial government, and about 
it hangs a romance. One hot day in midsummer a young British 
officer rode out to Gravesend "to place the mile-post. He asked for 
a drink of water at the farm-house, and a lovely girl gracefully served 
him. Love at first sight is an old story, with new charms revealed 
at each repetition; and in the case of the young officer and the win- 
some maiden it resulted in marriage and a journey to far-away Eng- 
land, where, they say, in a noble house hangs a picture of the 
milestone in front of the homestead from which the English noble- 
man brought his beautiful bride. 

The house is said to have been built more than two centuries ago 
by one John Coerte Voorhees, son of the first Voorhees who came to 
Gravesend. Though little is known of the early history of the home- 
stead, it came into local prominence at the time of the Revolutionary 
War, when Stephen J. Voorhees joined the American army. On 
learning that the British were coming. General W^ashington ordered 
all supplies to be destroyed, all grain burned in the fields, and the 
cattle killed. For many years after the enemy swept through that 
part of Gravesend, back on a lonely road of the town were great piles 
of the bones of cattle bleaching in the sun, and the townsmen as 
they passed the white heaps gazed silently on the remnants of their 
stock, and wondered when the weary days would pass that had brought 
an enemy to destroy their crops and their live-stock. 

The Patriot officers, when they warned the people to kill their 
cattle, allowed Mrs. Voorhees to keep one cow, that her baby might 
have milk; and for safety's sake the lady concealed it in her house. 
Not long afterward a Hessian came prowling about for beef; and, 
discovering the cow that the thrifty Mrs. Voorhees had concealed, 
he started to drive it off, when Mr. Voorhees, who had been separated 
from his regiment in the battle of Brooklyn and had hastened home, 

2S 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




\uuRiii':i'.s jioi SI. 

interfered. Words led to blows, and the Hessian was killed. Fear- 
ing lest the other members of the army would discover the loss of their 
companion and search for him, the \ oorhees. the tradition runs, 
buried the dead man in their cellar. Air. \ oorhees hastened by night 
to join again the American arm}'. 

CORIELVOI MANOR iUAM-: FROM WHICH A WOMAN 
SKAALLI'.l) W riil A RhO PllT'I'lCOA'l' FOR THE BRITISH 
TO FAN!) 

Jaccjues Cortelyou was the founder of New L'trecht; and his stone 
house so graphically described in a "Journal of a Voyage to New 
York in i^i^g-So,'' by Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, stood in 
what was then known as Nyack and is now Fort Hamilton. Jacques 
Cortelyou came to this country from Utrecht in 1652. Seven years 
before his arrival the West India Company gave the Indians six coats, 
six kettles, six axes, six chisels, six small looking-glasses, twelve knives, 
and twelve combs for all the land from (lowanus to Cone\' Island, 
including what is now New L'trecht. Cornells \ an \\ erckhoven, 
for whose children Jacques was tutor, received from the West India 
Company the first patent of Fort Flamilton. Alter attempting to 
plant a settlement there, he returned to the old country, lea^•ing as 
agent Cortel_\-ou, who in 1657 recei\'ed permission to la}- out the 

26 



R A M B L E S ABOUT H I S ^r O R I C BROOK L Y N 







SIMON CORl'KLYOU HOUSE 
From a photograph owned by Mrs. Townsend C. Van Pelt. 

town of New Utrecht, named in honor of the birthplace of Cornehs 
\ an \\ erckhoven. 

Dankers and Skiyter in their Journal speak of Corteh'ou in com- 
mendable terms. They sa}': "Jacc]ues is a man advanced in \-ears. 
He was born in Utrecht, but of French parents, as you could rcadilv 
discover from his actions, looks and language. He had studied philos- 
ophy in his youth, and spoke Latin and good French. He was a 
mathematician and sworn land-surveyor. He had also formerly 
learned several sciences, and had some knowledge of medicine. . . . 
We went looking around the country and toward evening came to 
the village of New Utrecht, so named by him. This village was 
burned down some time ago, with everything about it, including the 
house of this man, which was almost an half an hour distant from it. 
... It was now almost rebuilt, and many good stone houses were 
erected, of which Jacques's was one, where we returned by another 
road to spend the night. After supper, we went to sleep in the barn, 
upon some straw spread with sheep-skins, in the midst of the con- 
tinual grunting of hogs, squealing of pigs, bleating and coughing of 
sheep, barking of dogs, crowing of cocks, cackling of hens, and, es- 
pecially, a goodly quantity of Heas and vermin, . . . and all this with 
an open barn door, through which a fresh northwest wind was blow- 
ing. Though we could not sleep, we could not complain, inasmuch as 
we liad the same quarters and kind of bed that their son usuall}' had, 
who had now on our arrival cre]il in tlie straw behind us." 

\\ hen the British landed on l-oii^ Ishuul, three houses stood where 
I'ort Hamilton now stands, the C"ortcl}'ou house, which was on the 
south side of the reservation, the Bennct house, and the stone 
house of Denyse Denyse. I'radition sa\s that, when the I^ritish 
ships-of-war were riding in the ba_\", a C'ortelyou Ionian, Tor\' in 

27 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 





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DE SILLE HOUSE 

From a painting in tlie collection of the Long Island Historical Society. 

sympathy, carefully watching her opportunity, signalled with a red 
petticoat to the British the best time for them to land. The sol- 
diers, more than fifteen thousand strong, swarmed the Bath shore 
August 22, 1776, on land owned by Captain Adrian Van Brunt and 
Isaac Cortelyou, the latter a direct descendant of Jacques of Nyack 
(Fort Hamilton) fame. They say that American officers took 
possession of the house before the enemy came, and that, as fast as 
Lord Howe's men marched across the beach, the Patriots picked 
them ofT. Hessians, however, soon gained the field, and Lord Howe 
and his staff made the Cortelyou house their headquarters for about 
a month. 

Catherine, the daughter of Simon, then owner of the estate, loved 
a young British officer, who in a straightforward way asked the 
father's permission to marry her. The wrath of Simon Cortelyou 
blazed high, and the officer was told to vacate the premises, while 
Catherine was shut away from all communication with the outside 
world. The lovers waited, and on a clear moonlight night a horseman 
appeared beneath the window of the imprisoned girl. Low whispers 
followed, and Catherine, hastily throwing a scarf over her head, care- 
fully crept from her window. Softly the elopers ran to the bay, where 
a boat was waiting. Behind them rushed frantic members of the 
family, who had been awakened. Gun-barrels gleamed in the night. 
When the pursuers reached the shore, only the soft plash of oars told 

28 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

them that Catherine was out of reach. The report of a gun awoke 
echoes in the glorious night, followed by a woman's cry — and silence. 
They say that on the morrow a tiny slipper was found embedded in 
the sands on the shore. Catherine Cortelyou and her husband 
returned later to the old home to beg forgiveness, only to be greeted by 
bitter, angry words. On the very beach over which the night before 
he had carried his slender betrothed in their flight, the young officer 
shot himself and Catherine Cortelyou became mad. 

Throughout the War of the Revolution the Cortelyou house was 
the target for both British and Patriots. It is related that men sent 
by Lord Stirling, the American ofBcer, captured at New Utrecht 
Simon and Jacques Cortelyou, "two famous Tories in the enemies' 
lines, and specie and other property to the amount of )^5,ooo." "The 
prisoners," continues Onderdonk, "arc on parole at Brunswick, 
and are to be exchanged for two citizens of Jersey, in captivitv 
with the enemy." Captain Alarrener, a patriot officer, took Simon 
Cortelyou of New Utrecht to New Brunswick as a return for his un- 
civil conduct to the American prisoners and kept Cortelyou 's silver 
tankard and several other articles. About a decade ago the house was 
burned. 

NICASIUS DE SILLE HOUSE WHERE THE PATRIOT 
GENERAL WOODHULL DIED OF WOUNDS 

General Nathaniel Woodhull, for nearly a year president of the 
Provincial Congress of New York, gave his life to the Patriots' cause 
in the battle of Brooklyn. He was captured on the 28th of August, 
1776, by a party of Tories commanded by Captain De Lance}', after 
which he was brutally treated and given the innumerable sabre thrusts 
that caused his death. Mortally wounded, he was taken and lodged 
with other prisoners for the night in the Presbyterian church at 
Jamaica, near which he was captured. The following morning he 
was carried to a hay-boat which went down Jamaica Bay to New York 
Bay, and, in a dying condition, was taken on shore at New Utrecht, 
and laid in the church there, which stood where the burying-ground 
now is. Shortly before the arrival of his wife, he was removed to 
the stone house near by built by Nicasius De Sille, where he died, 
swearing his love for his country. 

This famous old stone house, with its roof of red tiles imported from 
Holland, torn down by Baret Wyckoff, its last occupant, in 1850, 
stood east of the church on what is now 84th Street, New Utrecht. 
It was one of the first houses erected in the town. On May 20, 1916, 
The General Nathaniel Woodhull Chapter, Daughters of the American 
Revolution, dedicated a tablet marking as nearly as possible the site 
of the De Sille House. 

Nicasius De Sille came to the town sliortly after the patent of land 
in New Utrecht had been granted early in 1657 and laid out into 
twenty lots of fifty acres each by Jacques Cortelx'ou, sur\e_vor. He 
was an important person, lia\ing been appointed fiscal or attorney- 
general by Petrus Stuyvesant; and his zeal for the well-being of tlie 

29 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

town of his adoption and the burdens of his official position brought 
incessant woes on his illustrious head. Nineteen other individuals, 
whom the records show as having unmistakably Dutch names, occu- 
pied the lots laid out for them. Fiscal De Sille built in the town 
the first house covered with red tiles. He erected a palisade about 
his house and trim garden. Wonderingly the neighbors whispered 
that the fiscal feared attacks from the Indians. As a matter of fact, 
the good Nicasius was protecting his domain against the depredations 
of droves of swine that evinced an unyielding propensity to eat up 
his garden. Shortly after this precautionary palisade was erected, 
Surveyor Cortelyou complained about the pigs of Anthony Jansen 
Sale, a Aloor and a rover, who respected neither Dutch tradition 
nor Dutch cleanliness, and who had spent several years — contrary to 
the law — in dickering with the Indians, from whom he purchased 
land, which the redmen readily parted with for a rusty knife or a 
looking-glass. From them this Moorish gentleman obtained a salt 
meadow, where he proceeded to keep snugly his hogs. 

Among the nineteen proprietors in New LItrecht dissensions arose, 
and they disputed constantly concerning land, houses, plantations, and 
rights. In the midst of the troubles, Nicasius De Sille faithfully kept the 
first town records of New Utrecht, and interspersed them with poems 
of his own. His later years as fiscal brought him woes innumerable, 
for his neighbors fought, their swine were destroyed, fences were broken, 
and thieves were abroad by day and by night. Added to all these 
things, John Schott, accompanied by a hundred Puritan guerillas, 
rode into New LUrecht with an immense brandishing of knives and 
blare of trumpets. They terrified the inhabitants and tormented 
the peace-loving fiscal in an unknown tongue, which they reinforced 
with threatening gestures and flashes of steel. De Sille had hard work 
to get rid of Schott and his horde. Not least of his troubles in office 
was the charge made against him by the States-General, asserting 
that he forbade the soldiers in the fort of Amsterdam to fire on the 
English troops into whose hands the colony fell. 

Dl'", IL\RT()R liERGEN HOUSE F0RMI<:RLY THE CENTRE OF 
A IlUNll'.R'S PARADISI-: 

The relic of a frontier trading-post stood for years on the shore of 
Gowanus Cove, west of Third Avenue, near 27th and 28th Streets, 
known as the Simon Bergen or De Hart house. The land on which 
the De Hart house stood was a portion of the 930-acre tract of land 
bought by William Adriaense Bennet and Jaques Bentyn in 1636, 
extending from about 27th Street to the New Utrecht line at Bay 
Ridge. The days of its most romantic history were when Simon 
Aerson De Hart owned, occupied, and dispensed his munificent 
hospitality to travellers, fur-traders, missionaries, and Indians. It 
apparently mattered little to mine host who his guests were, so long 
as they enjoyed the bounty of his table and tasted the excellent deer 
meat and wild turkey which he served. Not a great deal would be 
known of his history, had not Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, agents 

30 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

for the Labadist Society in Holland, visited De Hart and his family 
when they came on a voyage to this country in 1678. They describe 
him as a magnificent host, who with his wife was glad to see them. 
"We found a good fire," they say, in speaking of the house, "half-way 
up the chimney, of clear oak and hickory, of which they made not 
the least scruple in burning profusely. We let it penetrate us thor- 
oughly. There had been already thrown upon it, to be roasted, a 
pail-ful of Gouanes oysters, which are the best in the country. . . . 
They are large and full, some of them not less than a foot long, and 
they grow sometimes ten, twelve and sixteen together and are then 
like a piece of rock. ... In consequence of the great quantities of 
them, everybody keeps the shells for the purpose of burning them 
into lime. They pickle the oysters in small casks and send them to 
Barbadoes and other islands." 

The travellers were treated also at the De Hart house to roasted 
venison, which had been purchased from the Indians for "three 
guilders and a half of seezvant, that is fifteen stuivers of Dutch money 
(fifteen cents), and which weighed thirty pounds." They remark 
also concerning the spicy flavor of the venison and its tenderness. 
They had, besides, wild turkey and wild goose, and a sight of Simon's 
watermelons, — all in one meal. "It was very late at night," they 
add, "when we went to rest in a Kermis bed, as it is called, in the 
corner of the hearth, alongside of a good fire." They arose early in 
the morning and saw Simon and his wife depart for the city with 
their articles for marketing. 

Several Indian huts were built near the house of Simon De Hart, 
and these dusky neighbors proved themselves troublesome and at 
times not a little embarrassing. In the midst of one of their wild 
riotings, Dankers and Sluyter fortunately appeared to record the 
circumstances. They say that, when they arrived at "Gowan^J^," they 
heard a great noise, shouting and singing, fighting, brawling, and raging 
like wild beasts in the huts of the Indians, who had drunk too freely 
of fire-water. Finally, with a series of wild yells, infuriated men 
pursued their squaws, who fled to De Hart's house for protection. 
The door was closed after those who sought safety had been admitted, 
and the carousers were left outside to yell or return to their huts, 
as they pleased. 

In the early part of the nineteenth century Simon Bergen, then the 
owner, proposed to tear the old house down, but he was prevailed on 
to rescue it from decay, which he tlid b\- adding a new roof and other 
repairs, and for a number of \-ears it remained, until crowded out by 
modern dwellings. 

SCHENCK HOAIESTEAD BUILT IX 1656 AND REPUTI- h 
TO BE THE OLDI-.ST HOl'SE IN NEW YORK STATE 

Captain John Schenck, years before Jamaica Bay was even thought 
of as a terminal for ocean liners, built Schenck Wharf on the end of 
Mill Island, and personally carried on the larger part of the shipping 
between the New and the Old Netherlands. The oldest people of 

31 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 






SCHENCK HOUSE y\T MILL ISLAND 

Flatlands and Bergen Beach have told many a talc concerning this 
same Captain Schenck, and added that he was at one time a lieu- 
tenant of Captain Kidd. Somebody once called the house itself 
"the pirate house." How it got this name or why is not known, as 
no member of the Schenck family appears to have followed this call- 
ing, and no tales of Captain Kidd and his many and varied treasures 
seem to be connected with the place. It is a great wonder, however, 
owing to the convenience of its location, that the notorious Kidd never 
visited it. 

For more than two centuries and a half this picturesque little house 
has stood on what was formerly Alill Island and is now Bergen Beach. 
Jan Martense Schenck Van Nydeck, of noble lineage, born in Amers- 
foort, Holland, emigrated to America and built this house in 1656. 
After the property came into the possession of a descendant, Captain 
John Schenck, it consisted of about seventy-five acres of woodland, 
upland, and salt marsh. Those who inherited the estate from Captain 
Schenck sold it to Joris Martense, of Flatbusli, for £2,500. The new 
owner, while apparently not swerving from his allegiance to the king, 
during the War of the Revolution gave generously toward the Patriot 
cause, — in all, about $5,500. In this house Captain William Marrener 
(when he made his famous midnight expedition through Platbush) 
captured Major Moncrief of the British army. 

From the Martense family the property passed into the hands of 
General Philip S. Crooke, and was finally bought and is still owned 
by the Atlantic, Gulf &. Pacific Company. 



32 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

It has changed Httle during the nearly three hundred years of its 
Hfe. The massive fireplace still stands in the living-room, and the 
old beams, taken from the hull of a ship wrecked years ago in a great 
storm on the shore, are in a state of fine preservation. The creek 
that formerly separated the house from the mainland was filled in 
long ago. Ivy clambers over the walls of the homestead, and trees 
shade its low porch, from which may be seen a queer little mill, called 
Gerritson's Mill, resting for two centuries on the edge of Strome Kil, 
or Gerritson's Creek, or the Mill Pond, as it has been called. They 
say that, when the redcoats were hastening on their way over Long 
Island, the thrifty Dutch Patriots sold them flour at the mill for a 
dollar a pound. A little stream still gurgles and chatters drowsily 
by the old mill, in sight of the porch of the Schenck homestead; and 
not far away from it are the golf links of Harry Payne Whitney. A 
Flatbush Avenue car will take the antiquary to the Schenck home- 
stead and the sleepy little stream tliat flows by the mill. 

THh; BERGEN HOUSE WHERE THE GHOS'I^ OF LORD 
HOWE IS SAID TO ROAM ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF 
THE BMl'Lh: OF LONC^ ISLAND 

This old Bergen house, located once at 33d Street and Third Avenue, 
south of the King's Highway, stood directly in the British line of 
battle here in Brooklyn. Alichael Hansen Van Bergen received 
the original grant of land, confirmed by the Dutch, from the Indians 
about the year 1660. The most interesting history of the old home- 
stead was during the seven years prior to the evacuation of New York 
by the British, when it was occupied by British officers as their head- 
quarters. It is said that in one of the quaint upper chambers General 
Burgoyne wrote his comedy, "The Battle of Brooklyn," afterward 
performed at the King's Head Tavern, on what is now Fulton Street, 
Brooklyn. And it is further asserted that sharp on the stroke of 
midnight each year, on the anniversary of the battle of Long Island, 
booted feet were heard pacing the floor of an upper chamber, and a 
great clanking of steel was heard as the stately tread of spurred feet 
descended the winding stairs. The ghostly visitor, supposed to be 
Lord Howe, paused in the lower hall, long enough possibly to adjust 
his cloak or his sword, and then, regardless of the storm that might 
be raging without or the soft moonlight that sifted through the 
locust-trees, he passed out of the old door, to again revisit the scenes 
of the battle of Long Island. 

Romance did not pass the old homestead by, but paused longest, 
it may be, in the shadow of the locust-trees that shaded it and in the 
arbors that sheltered the old garden. A Bergen girl fell in love with 
a British officer, and fearing the wrath of the stern old squire, her 
father, who was a high magistrate of the village, she left her home, 
and with her husband sought Nova Scotia, where land was granted 
them b\' the King of iMigland. 

The women of the house of Bergen were famous for their beauty, 
and the men -were noted for their hardihood anel courage in war. 

33 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




BERGEN HOUSE 



Forth from their home the Bergen boys stealthily went one dark night, 
and, rowing a waiting boat toward a British war-ship anchored far 
from land, they surprised the sleeping crew, and made the Hessian 
officers prisoners, triumphantly carrying them to the headquarters 
of the Patriot army in Jersey. 

The early surroundings of the old Bergen homestead must have been 
picturesque before the forests were cut or the bay filled in, or there 
was any road save an Indian trail upon which to travel through the 
country. Gone now is each nearby landmark, and every vestige of 
the life of the early days; and nothing but pictures and memories of 
this old Bergen homestead remain. 



THE SL"M)AM HOISE 
THE RiaOLl'TIOX 



OCdPH-lD BY HESSLWS DURING 



Hessians took possession of the Hendrick Suydam house in the 
Bushwick section of Brooklyn during the Revolutionary War. They 
were not welcome to Hendrick's snug homestead on Bushwick Lane, 
but, good Whig that he was, he had his choice of being relegated to a 
dirty prison or swearing allegiance to the Tory cause. So he chose 
the latter. His house was as trim and tidy and clean as the average 
Dutch house of the day. It had been built about 1700 by Leifert 
Lefferts, some say. Other authorities claim that a man by the name 
of Van Nuyse may have owned the land and built the house. 

34 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC B R O O K L \' N 







J J i. •< 1 

, ^ , ., . , M : » i ' I 






;iijSf5- 



SL \D.\.\1 llULSl'. 
From a print in "Historic and Antiquarian Scenes in Brooklyn and Vicinity," by T. VV. Field. 

Like a horde of wild Vandals, the hired soldiers of the king de- 
scended on Mistress Suydam's snug home, spreading about them more 
dirt than the Dutch had ever been buried in, and gaining, by repu- 
tation, the name of the "Dirty Blues." These Hessians were pro- 
digious thieves; though, when once assured that they would remain 
unmolested by the Patriots, they were kinder than the British, and 
more likely to give the Americans a square deal. 

A door-post in the Suydam house was hacked by the sabre of the 
captain of the regiment, one Colonel Rahl, who with twenty-one men 
and a cook took up quarters there during the absence of Hendrick 
Suydam. Mrs. Suydam was obliged to vacate a part of her house, 
and establish herself and her children, as best she could, in a room 
across the hall. For three months she lived there, until her Dutch 
soul became desperate, so unclean were her tenants, and she left her 
house. Returning later, she found it in a deplorable condition, — her 
furniture broken, the house sacked, and all of the bedding stolen. 

Before the destruction of the house, about fifteen years ago, there 
were many evidences of the hard usage it had received, though, so far 
as the walls were concerned, it might easily have weathered another 
century or two. Staples in the ceilings of the rooms on the first floor 
w'ere once used by the soldiers to hang their sabres on. Bullet-holes 
were found in the casements of the windows set in their liny sashes. 
The sabre-marks on the lintels of the front door were never removed, 
being kept there, no doubt, by the sturdy Dutch as a reminder of the 
many indignities they received during the days when Hessians roved 
through their streets and robbed their fields, flocks, and larders. 
The first story of the house was built of stones gathered from the 

35 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




REMSEN HULSE 



' yyrfihiiirir" *'**^ » 



neighboring fields, and the walls were unusually thick and exception- 
ally well built. The site of the old house is occupied by the Second 
German Baptist Church, on the corner of Evergreen Avenue and 
Woodbine Street. 



THE REMSEN PLACli 
TRIP IN A TUB 



AND JAXXETTE DE RAPELJE'S 



The Remsen house, on the corner of Remsen Place and Church 
Avenue, was built long before the War of the Revolution, and it is 
believed by members of the family that some Remsen has lived in it 
ever since Alanhattan Island had its first Dutch governor. 

The first member of this distinguished family was Rem Van Der 
Beck, a blacksmith in early Brooklyn, who married Jannette De 
Rapelje, about whom the Canarsie Indian legend has come down, 
telling how, when Jannette was a little girl, a squaw bundled her into 
a tub and rowed her all the way from Gowanus Island to Long Island, 
that the Indians might see what a little white girl looked like. 

Brooklyn's history is closely associated with this family, which, 
though never seeking office, always served the community in one way 
or another. One Jacob Remsen was the bell-ringer of the town when 
the first bell was purchased for £49 ^., and people were deploring the 
wasteful extravagance of it and of a fire-engine that some progressive 
men of affairs had bought. More than twent}'-six acres of land south 
of Brooklyn Ferry, as Fulton Ferr)' was then known, came into the 
possession of the Remsen family on June 19, 1753, ^^^^ cost them the 

36 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




LOTT HOMESTEAD 

then snug sum of £i,o6o. About ten years later they sold this land, 
and Henry and Peter Remsen purchased all of the present business 
section of the city. Their holdings have been recorded as extending 
south to Red Hook Point and north to what is now Livingston 
Street. 

The progenitor of the Remsen family, Rem Jansen Van Der Beck, 
died in i68i, leaving his wife Jannette and fifteen children, all of whom 
have been recorded as married and attending his funeral. He was 
esteemed as a citizen and a magistrate. 



HENDRICK I. LOTT HOMESTEAD AND (^XP'IAIN I.OTT 
OF THE KINGS COl^NTY MILITIA 

From the heart of Brooklyn one may reach in thirty minutes Flat- 
lands, where still remain old Dutch manors and spreading meadows 
surrounded by an atmosphere as fair and peaceful as that which 
pervaded them two centuries ago. Small wonder is it that the re- 
nowned Talleyrand, when he came here, begged rides of Flatlands farm- 
ers, all the while praising their fertile fields and suggesting new vege- 
tables adapted to the soil. Talleyrand may have seen the quaint Lott 
homestead, which, combining the old and the new, now stands on 
Kimbell's Road near Flatlands Bay, and is one of the most interesting 
places thereabouts,- — at one time a show place in this part of the 
country, and called the finest house in Kings County. 

The Hendrick I. Lott homestead was probably built about iSoo. 
Johannes Lott, a descendant of the first Lott that came to America, 
bought the land in 1719 from Coert Voorhhics. and there was a time 

37 



R A M B L E S ABOUT H I S 1^ O R I C BROOKLYN 

when most of the land in this section was owned by either the Lotts 
or the Wyckoffs. Johannes Lott, who Hved on the farm and eventually 
became one of the largest land-owners in Flatlands, was something 
of a farmer and something of a soldier. He served as captain of the 
Kings County militia, and fought well in the French and Indian War. 
His three sons received each a farm after his death, and one of them 
was the Hendrick I. Lott who built this homestead, moving the dining- 
room of the old house and its kitchen up to the new. The old part is 
probably more than two hundred years old. 

Flatlands has been the subject of many a story. Its church chron- 
icles are interesting, and its civil records full of varied incidents, 
while its legends arc fascinating. If the traveller has once heard these 
things, he cannot fail to recall some of them as he wanders in the 
vicinity of the Lott homestead, viewing it from this point and that. 
He will remember the renowned Adrian \'an Sinderen, who presided 
over the Flatlands church, now more than two and a half centuries 
old, and the Dutch sermons for American liberty that Van Sinderen 
preached to British soldiers. Every Sunday he prayed that success 
might come to Washington, and the British officers, not knowing 
what the pious Van Sinderen said, joined heartily in the service. 

A tale is told of the days when the council of the town met in a 
store that once stood on King's Highway and Flatbush Avenue, and 
of the old court being held in the cellar, to the consternation of the 
dignitary, who protested against presiding over a court held among 
the pots and kettles. There also was the heated contest in which 
it was disputed whether the owner or the town should have a strip of 
land called "Ruffle-bar." A man by the name of Eliot and another 
named Bergen were appointed to watch the polls when the matter 
came to a vote. Bergen was for and Eliot against the town. Things 
might have gone well enough, had not Mr. Bergen yielded to his 
unvarying propensity for a mid-day nap, whereupon the shrewd Eliot, 
as the story goes, chewed up and swallowed a quarter of a hundred 
ballots, and carried the polls against the town. 

Frequently during the early Dutch da}'s this part of Brooklyn was 
a scene of stirring times, for neighbor wrangled with neighbor and 
magistrates had much to do; but now the city here has been quiet 
for centuries; and one of the fairest of its present residences is the 
Hendrick I. Lott homestead, still peaceful and charming as it was 
in the early part of the past century. 

THE HOMESTEAD Oi' CAPTAIN CORNELIUS \AND1:R 
VEER WHO CA.Ml-: NI'.AR P.l-:iN(; HANGED B^' THE 

REDrn\TS 

Captain Cornelius X'andervcer and the burghers of Flatbush fought 
the British two days before the battle of Long Island, and were re- 
pulsed at an old lane where fortifications had been thrown up. Fortu- 
nately, this good Patriot had taken the precaution of sending his 
family over to Jersey. After the end of the skirmish with the British, 
attended by a slave, he returned to his home only to find it in the hands 

38 



R A x\l B L E S ABOUT H I S 1' O R I C BROOKLYN 




CAPTAIN CORNELIUS \ANDF.R\KKR HOUSE 

of the enemy, and later, still clad in his uniform, he ran into a Hessian 
sentinel. Preparations were made to hang him, and a rope was 
placed about his neck, when Captain Miller, a British officer whom 
he had met before the war, interfered. Captain Vanderveer was 
taken before Lord Cornwallis, who ordered him sent to New Utrecht. 
In a trial before Captain Cuyler, one of Lord Howe's aides, he was 
asked, — 

"Will you take a 'protection' and go back to vour farm in Flat- 
bush.?" 

"If you don't ask me to light against my count r\-," answered 
Captain Vanderveer. "I will never do that." 

"That need not worry you," responded the British officer. "We 
have fighting men enough witliout you. "\'ou may go to the rebels 
or to the devil, for all 1 care." 

The order stating that Captain \ aiuierveer was under Lord Corn- 
wallis's protection was written, and tlirections were given that he be 
left undisturbed. 

The \'aiiderveer homestead, standing, until late in 191 1, on Flat- 
bush Avenue between Clarendon Road and Avenue D, dated back to 
1747, and possibly farther. Many aids were given there to the Amer- 
ican cause. The women of the \'anderveer household made the suit 
of clothes which Captain L\-man wore when he got beyond the British 
lines and joined the American army, antl Captain \'ander\'eer himself 
loaned (]overnf)r Clinton monew that New ^'ork might be enabled 
to carry on the war. In this house also was made the flag which was 
raised on the libert)' pole in I'"latbush when the British left Long 
Island. 



39 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




THE JOHN DITMARS I HjMI'.M I'.Al) 



THE DITMARS IIOrSK AND I'lS S1Y)RY 

At the outbreak of the War of the Revolution, General Washington 
ordered the farmers in Kings and Queens Counties to stack their 
grain in the fields and burn it, provided the enemy came and the 
burning could be accomplished without endangering the buildings 
near by. Not long afterward the redcoats landed on Long Island, 
and hither and thither the Patriot farmers ran, dropping their silver 
into wells, concealing their valuables, driving off their live-stock, 
and last, but not least, burning their fodder and grain. Johannes 
Ditmars, fairly well off in this world's goods for the time in which 
he lived, young, patriotic, obeyed the commands given by General 
Washington. He had, however, a guardian who was a Loyalist, 
and refused to burn his grain. The enemy were not far away, and 
American soldiers ordered that the barn of the guardian of Ditmars be 
burned, whereupon young Ditmars rushed into the building, extin- 
guished the fire, and, mounting a convenient pile of hay, cried to the 
Americans, "If you burn this barn, you burn me!" 

They marched away in solemn file, leaving young Johannes Ditmars 
master of the situation, so intent on his service to his neighbor and 
guardian that probably little thought was given to the flaming stacks 
of grain in his own fields. 

Still another tradition, equally interesting, concerns an attack made 
by the British on the old Ditmars house by night. They came for 
gold that they had heard was concealed in bags in a cupboard in the 
house. Two slaves heard the commotion downstairs, where young 

40 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 





^e" 3^'. ' 




^?Sia6fc.^ 



From a print in "Historic and Antiquarian Scenes in Brookl> n and \"icinit>-." b>- T. W.Pield. 

Ditmars and his mother had been seized and smothered beneath a 
feather bed, while now and again the soldiers endeavored to force one 
of them to unlock the closet where the treasure was supposed to be 
concealed. When Ditmars refused to do this, the invaders, seizing 
their weapons, hacked the closet time and again. Their blows brought 
downstairs the two slaves, who, armed witli various antiquated weap- 
ons, soon ousted the British. 

The following notice of the event afterward appeared: — 
"20 pounds Reward. — Last night, Nov. 5, about 8 o'clock, 4 men, 
with weapons, forced into the house of Johannes Ditmars, Flatlands, 
and beat him and his mother in a cruel manner. . . . Three of them 
went off, and the fourth was put in Flatbush Jail, but escaped the 
same night wounded in the head, and said his name was Jos. Mosier." 
The Ditmars house still stands in Kouwenhovcn Place, Flatlands. 

DLXVSLS ['VAU<\ IWK SCLXK OF THF FIRST RLSIST- 
ANCK 1T) P>R1T1S1I ARMS IX 1'HK MIDnLl', STATKS 

A stirring scene was enacted at Denyse's Ferr\- on the 22d of August, 
1776, when a fleet of British \essels arranged themselves a half-mile 
distant from the Long Island shore. Across on Staten Island thou- 
sands of Hessians marched to the water's edge to embark, and twice 
as many British soldiers followed them. A signal gun roared out, 
and simultaneousl}- hundreds of oars tossed up the water, and the 
great vessels prepared to come closer to the shore. Ships' boats ad- 
vanced, spitting flame into every thicket and toward every point 
where Patriots might be concealed. At Denyse's Ferry, which is 

41 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISl^ORIC BROOKLYN 

now Fort Hamilton, there were three houses, — the dwelling of Denyse 
Denyse, that of Adrian Bennet, and the house of Simon Cortelyou, 
violent Loyalist. A ball fired from one of the British ships passed 
through Bennet's kitchen; another tore away part of a fence in front 
of the house of Denyse Denyse; but the house of Simon Cortelyou, 
where a woman is supposed to have waved a red petticoat as a signal 
for the British to land, remained unscathed. Up on the bluff near 
the landing at Den}'se's Ferry a tiny battery spit at the boats of 
the advancing horde. Soon the shore was dense with the landing 
troops, and Long Island paralyzed, knowing not where to turn. The 
country people dwelling on the plain bordering Gravesend Bay had 
the choice of placing themselves under the protection of unwelcome 
invaders or of abandoning their farms. Most of the neighborhood 
in the vicinity of Denyse's Ferry were Loyalists, who hailed the 
coming of the troops as their natural protectors. 15,000 strong 
the British came, bringing fear to the inhabitants and spreading their 
forces like a pestilence over Long Island. "Thus," it is recorded, 
"commenced the first resistance to British arms in the Middle States, 
on the spot where Fort Hamilton now stands." 

Robert E. Lee, when he was stationed at Fort Hamilton, was a 
vestryman at old St. John's Church, and "Stonewall" Jackson was 
baptized in this church. It is said he was a rigid keeper of the Sab- 
bath, never travelling on that day nor attending to any details of 
business. He attended church morning and evening, and taught in 
the Sabbath school. 



HUL*..iiiuA iiuL.>E FROM THE WINDOWS C •' 

COULD BE SEEN THE PRISON SHIPS RIDING J 
BOUT BA^ 

Near the Navy Yard on Cumberland Street is this old house, sur- 
rounded by a high board fence. Probably Samuel Boughton, once 
its owner and from whom the house has taken its name, knew much 
more of its history than is known to-day, or he may have been too 
much engrossed in tilling the land that adjoined it, and in raising fruit 
and vegetables on an extensive scale, to play the antiquary. Mr. 
Boughton occupied the place after the Revolution, but the extent 
of his stay is not generally known. After his death, in i860, the 
estate passed through various hands. 

To-day the Boughton house is surrounded by tenements, and the 
best view obtainable of it is from the back windows of some of the 
houses on Carlton Avenue. Survey it on an idle day from a con- 
venient point, and imagine how its weather-beaten walls, windows, 
and doors looked when Washington rode up to it. Fancy him, as they 
tell, passing long nights there, planning details for the American 
army. This old house was a convenient stopping-place and practical 
headquarters for the American commanders before the battle of 
Long Island, as it lay in a direct line with the chain of fortifications and 
entrenchments that had been thrown up by the Continental troops 
from the Wallabout to the head of Gowanus Creek. 

42 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




BATFLE PASS, BROOKLYN, L.I. 1766 

From a lithograph made from McCloskey's Manual for 1867. In the collection of the New 

York Public Library. 




B.VrFLK PASS, \ALL1'.\ L,RO\ K, BROOKLYN, L.L 1866 

From a litliotrraph made from McCloskey's Manual for 1867. In the collection of the New 

^'ork Public Librarv. 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




BOUGHTON HOUSE 

Some years ago, in making repairs, workmen found an old shingle with 
the inscription, "Erected 1727." There is a tradition that the British 
troops also occupied the Boughton house during their reign in Brook- 
lyn, and that the prison-ships riding in Wallabout Bay could be plainly 
seen from the windows. Of all of the prison-ships the old Jersey, 
which had as many as 1,000 men at once, was the worst. At the 
close of the war her prisoners were released. Worms demolished her 
old hulk, and she finally sank. No one has ever been able to say how 
many men were tossed from their loathsome prisons into the waters 
of the Wallabout, though some one has said that more than 11,000 
died on the Jersey alone. 

Old residents call attention to the fact that at the rear of this house, 
the centre at the time of the Revolution of so much activity, a large 
slate powder-mill was operated for the use of the Continental troops; 
and they say further that, before the British troops came to live in 
the house, it was used as a storage place for the plunder of 
Continental freebooters. 

The old mansion is worth a visit, and the view of it from Carlton 
Avenue is well worth the trip. 

The old mansion is deserted now; and tales ot fortifications and en- 
trenchments, of commanding officers and General \\\ishington himself, 
are buried in the dim past, so much so that the fancy of the history 
lover is hardly kindled by the dilapidated structure with its scraggly 
shrubs, trees, and weeds clustering about it. 



44 



RAMBLES ABOUT HIST R I C I^> R O O K L ^' N 







HOWARD'S HALF-WAY HOUSK, EAST NEW ^ORK 

From an eneraviriK in "A History of the City of Brooklyn," by Henr\- R. Stile 



HOWARD'S 1'\\1',R\ AND OKNKRAI, llOWI'', 

IJ'illiam Ilozcard {to Ct'ueral Hozcr): "We belong to the other side, treaeral, 
and can't serve you against our duty." 

General Hozve: "You have no alternative. H you refuse, I siiall ha\e you 
shot through the head." 

A guard burst open the door of the bar-room in W illiam Howard's 
Tavern at two o'clock on the morning of the 26th of August, 1776. 
The early guests were Sir W illiam Howe, Lord Percy, Marquis Corn- 
wallis, and Sir Henry Clinton. 16,000 British soldiers, who had lain for 
several days at Flatbush, were halted in front of the tavern, waiting to 
be led over the Rockaway Path, in order that they might outflank the 
Americans who, the enemy thought, were hidden along the Jamaica road. 

(General Howe had selected William Howard, tavern-keepier, as 
his guide. The conversation, later recorded by Major William 
Howard, the son, follows. He was tjien a little fellow, and a soldier 
had awakened him. Going into the bar-room, he saw his father stand- 
ing in one corner, hemmed in by soldiers with their muskets and 
bayonets fixed. Ciencral Howe wore a camlet cloak over his uniform. 
At the bar he called for a glass of licjuor. 

"I must have some of you show me over the Rockaway Path around 
the Pass," he said. 

"W'e belong to the other side, general, and can't serve you against 
our duty," quietly responded William Howard. 

"That is all right. Stick to your country or stick to your principles, 
but, Howard, vou are my prisoner, and must guide mv men over the 
hill." 

"But"— 

45 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




SECOND CHURCH EDIFICE 

Built in 1766. Reproduction is from a drawing by Miss Eiizabetii Sleight in 1808. From 

"History of the First Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Breuckelen." Compiled 

by Henry VVhittemore. 

"You have no alternative," silenced the general. "If you refuse, 
I shall have you shot through the head." 

William Howard, accompanied by his son, set out in the early morn- 
ing across the hills. They and their house were placed under a 
strong guard. Orders were given that none escape. Every house in 
the neighborhood was similarly protected. 

Through the wooded hills, father and son led the British army, 
and at the end of the march, on reaching a turn in the Jamaica road, 
"my father and myself," continues the narrator, "were released and 
sent back to the tavern, which we found surrounded by the guard." 

Howard's Tavern, known by many as the Half-way House and the 
Rising Sun Tavern, formerly stood at the junction of the Jamaica and 
Bedford turnpikes. It was sold in 1S67, and to-day on the site are 
car depots and shops in the Eastern District of Brooklyn. 



Till' 



<'!!!"<"' 



I N^ |J 



]^ ()()]<]. \\ 



Jasper Bankers and Peter Sluyter, when they visited America 
late in the seventeenth century, speak of crossing the ferry from 
Manhattan to Long Island, and of going "up the hill, along open 
roads, and a little wood, through the first village Breuckelen, which 
had a small ugly church standing in the middle of the road." This 
was the first church of Brooklyn, built in 1666, and located on what 
would be now Fulton Street, near Lawrence. The church society 
still exists in the First Reformed Church on Seventh Avenue. 

There is a tradition that this first church was built on the walls of 

46 



RAMBLES ABOUT H I S 1M) R 1 C BROOKLYN 



a crude stone fort, erected to protect the inhabitants from the attacks 
of the savages. The church began with a membership of 27, and they 
gave their dominie a salary of 300 guilders, payable in corn. 

Dominie Polhemus preached his first sermon in Brcuckclen on 
Sunday, April 6, 1656. He preached out-of-doors until invited to 
go into the house of Joris Dirckscn. Breuckelcn appears to ha\-e be- 
come dissatisfied with the dominie; for, when a bill of 150 guilders 
was presented to them, they refused to pa\' it. Their j-iroicst included a 
declaration that they had never called Polhemus, had never accepted 
him as minister, that he had intruded himself on them against their will, 
and "voluntarily preached in the open streets, under the blue sky; 
when, to avoid off'ence, the house of Joris Dircksen was temporarily 
offered him here in Breuckelen." Governor Stuyvesant did not grant 
the plea made, and the town was told that it would be obliged to pay 
for the minister's services. The people were told they might pay in 
produce, — maize, peas, wheat, anything that they chose to present. 

In the mean time the good Mr. Polhemus was in actual need, 
complaining that his family in Flatbush were suffering greatly, that 
their house was unfinished, that they were obliged to sleep on the cold 
floor, and that they had not sufiicicnt clothing to wear. After much 
pleading with the governor and council, he was able to secure a part 
of his salary, three years due, and was finally succeeded in Breuckelen 
by a resident minister, Henricus Selyns, who was formally installed 
as the dominie of the First Reformed Protestant Church of Breuckelen. 
This first installation in the town was held September 7, 1660. Dominie 
Selyns said, "I found in Breuckelen one Elder, two deacons, twenty- 
four church-members, 31 householders, and 131 persons." 

PLYMOUTH CHURCH WHERE HENRY WARD BEECHER 
SOLD SLAVES 

Strangers in New York, a half-century ago, were given the follow- 
ing direction to reach Plymouth Church: "Cross Fulton Ferry and 
follow the crowd." 

Henry Ward Beecher was then pastor; and, at the time when he 
began to prove himself the champion of the sla\e, throngs came to 
hear him preach, and standing room in the church was rarely avail- 
able. \\ hen the cjuestion arose as to whether Kansas should be a 
free or a slave State, Mr. Beecher struck an initial blow by suggest- 
ing to his parishioners that a Sharpe rifle was as good a missionary 
to send as a Bible, and accordingly cases of rifles were bought by the 
church, boxed, and sent out. They came to be known as Beecher's 
Bibles. I'his action occurred at the time when Joim Brown came into 
national prominence. 

Later, in addressing a large audience in l^roadwa\- Tabernacle, 
New \ ork, during his address he lifted a chain that had once bound a 
slave, and, holding it high over his head, he dashed it to the flot)r, 
and, placing his foot upon it, said, " Li this way we propose to deal with 
the slave power in the Scjuth." "Slavery is wrong; slavery shall not ex- 
tend; slavery shall die," was Henr\- W arel Beecher's constant cr\'. This 

47 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




PLYMOUTH CHURCH 



saying became a keynote of the abolitionist movement. Beecher flung 
open the door of Plymouth Church to the men who were fighting 
the slave traffic. Wendell Phillips was welcomed to Plymouth 
Church. No other place in New York was open to him. 

A memorable slave auction occurred on Sunday, June ii, i86i. 
News of the event had been noised abroad, and the church and street 
outside were crowded. The service was begun by reading the story 
of the man cured of a withered hand: '"Is it lawful,'" read Henry 
Ward Beecher, "'to do good on the Sabbath day or to do evil, to save 
life or to kill.^'" "About two weeks ago," he said, "I had a letter 
from Washington, informing me that a young woman had been sold 
by her own father to be sent South. She was bought by a Federal 
slave-dealer for $1,200, and he has offered to give you the opportunity 
of purchasing her freedom. She has given her word of honor to return 
to Richmond if the money be not raised, and, slave though she may be 
called, she is a woman who will keep her word. Now, Sarah, come 
up here, so that we can see you." 

The girl came slowly up the pulpit stairs and stood by Mr. Beecher's 
side. The pastor of Plymouth Church at once took on the voice and 
action of a slave auctioneer. His dramatic impersonation has been 
reported thus: — 

"Look at this remarkable commodity, — human flesh and blood 
like yourselves. You see the white blood of her father in her regular 
features and high, thoughtful brow. Who bids.? You will have to 
pay extra for that white blood, because it is supposed to give intelli- 
gence. Stand up, Sarah! Now look at her trim figure and wavy hair! 
How much do you bid for them.'' She is sound in wind and limb, I'll 
warrant her! Who bids.? Her feet and hands — hold them out, Sarah 



RAMBLES A B l^ T HISTORIC BR O O K L ^' N 

— are small and finely formed. What do you bid for her? She is a 
Christian woman, — I mean a praying nigger, — and that makes her 
more valuable, because it insures her docility and obedience to your 
wishes. 'Servants, obey your masters,' you know. Well, she believes 
that doctrine. How much for her.'' W'ill you allow this praying 
woman to be sent back to Richmond to meet the fate for which her 
father sold her.'' If not, who bids.'*" 

His audience was breathless. Women sobbed. 

"Come now," continued i\Ir. Beecher, "we are selling this woman, you 
know, and a fine specimen she is, too. Look at her! See for yourselves! 
Don't you want her.? Now, then, pass the baskets and let us see!" 

Bank-notes were piled in those baskets, and jewels frcjm women's 
hands. Those who were near the pulpit laid their gifts at Henry 
Ward Beecher's feet. 

"There, Sarah, you are free," said Mr. Beecher. 

More than a year before this event a young slave girl, valued by 
her master at $900 was sold in Plymouth Church. This occurred on 
Sunday in February, i860. In the audience was a lady named Rose 
Terry, who put into the contribution-box one of her rings. Later 
the pastor placed this ring on the slave girl's finger, telling her it was 
her freedom ring, and that her name w^as Rose Ward, for the lady 
who gave the ring and himself. Rose Ward was later sent to Howard 
University by the Plymouth society. 

Nor were the slave days the only stirring times that Plymouth 
Church experienced; for leaders along various lines were welcomed 
there, and among them Louis Kossuth, once Governor of Hungary, 
who, engaged in a civil war with Germany, was beaten and driven 
into Turkey, where the sultan protected him. Kossuth went to Eng- 
land; and, after enjoying a cordial reception in London, he came to 
America in the winter of 185 1. A bitterly cold night brought him to 
Brooklyn, where he was escorted through brilliantly lighted streets 
to Plymouth Church, draped in the flags of America and Hungary. 
"I present him," said Mr. Beecher, "not only as the champion of his 
own kind, but because he loves his kind everywhere." 

Kossuth told them of Hungary's sufferings and of her condition. 
At the close of his address he was given a cannon-ball from the New 
Orleans battlefield and a casket of bullets from Bunker Hill. 

Plymouth Church is on Orange Street. It remained practically 
the same as when Mr. Beecher preached, but the activities of the 
church have led to the construction of an addition known as the 
Arbuckle Memorial in honor of the giver, John Arbuckle. Its present 
pastor is Newell Dwight Hillis, successor to Lyman Abbott. 

'1111', IMl'.RKLl'UX I lil'.U .li I:-. 

r:(;'rf;v:'> :<!(;\.\. ■ 'I'lll' sii 



The Pierrepont mansion, which has come down in history as 
"The Four Chimneys," stood on a line with the present Montague 
Street, when the Heights of Brooklyn had many green fields and open 

49 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




I'llE CORNELL-PIERREPONT MANSION 

From a print in " Pierrepont Genealogies from the Norman Time to 1913," by R. Burnham 

Moffat. 



spaces. The little bridge which to-day spans Montague Street is close 
to what was once Mr. Pierrepont's cellar. It is said that during the 
siege of Brooklyn a signal was established upon the roof of "The 
Chimneys" in order to communicate with New York, and from it by 
means of a tall liberty pole information concerning the movements of 
the troops there were sent to the headquarters in Brooklyn. Orders 
from Washington also were sent from the station on the roof. 

General Lafayette, when he visited Brooklyn in August, 1824, 
was entertained by Hezekiah Pierrepont in his mansion on the Heights. 
Among the distinguished guests were Colonel Fish, father of Governor 
Hamilton Fish, and Judge Daggett, of New Haven, both of whom had 
known Washington well and had been associated with him as secre- 
taries or aides during some part of the Revolutionary War. After 
the dinner given to Lafayette, the guests assembled on the piazza. 

"By the by, general," said Colonel Fish, "are you aware that this 
house has a great historical interest.^ This is the room in which the 
council was held which decided upon the retreat from Long Island." 

The panic into which the troops were thrown during the retreat 
was recalled, and Judge Daggett said that the confusion was frightful. 
In spite of the commands of the officers the soldiers crowded into the 
boats that were to carry them to Manhattan, until there was no pos- 
sible way of moving them. 

Washington, in the mean time, was keenly observing the situation, 
and his patience was rapidly ebbing. When a man leaped out from the 
throng, Washington seized a stone, which probably few men in the 
army could have lifted, and, raising it in his hands, shouted, — 

"If ever}' man in that boat doesn't instantly leave it, I'll sink 
it to !" 

For an instant he towered there with the huge stone in his up- 
raised hands. The boat was instantly cleared, and no act of insub- 
ordination is recorded during the rest of the retreat. 

Mr. Pierrepont, master of "The Chimneys," was one of the most 
influential men of his time in Brooklyn. He was a merchant, traveller, 

SO 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




I'llE OLD TUNNEL UNUKR AluN'l'AGLK hlRLLl' 
From a photograph in the collection of the New York Public Library. 

and liLimanitarian, delighting in the progress of Brooklyn aiid taking 
great pride in the beauty of his surroundings. He was frequently 
abroad, and was in France at the time of the Revolution, witnessing 
there the bloodiest of the days, and present when Robespierre was 
beheaded, July 28, 1794. So overcome was he by the sight of blood 
that he feared for his personal safety among the mob that revelled 
in those scenes. 

Early in 1804 he purchased what was known as the Benson Farm 
on the Heights, where the Plaza now stands on Montague Street, 
commanding a fine view of the Hudson and East Rivers. Later he 
bought land adjoining this, and had in all about sixty acres, with a 
frontage of eight hundred feet on the East River, going back about 
half a mile to Love Lane on the north and Remsen Street on the south, 
as far as the old Jamaica road and Fulton Street, as it is now known. 
While in Europe, Mr. Pierrepont met Robert l'\ihon, and they formed 
a friendship that was lasting. Mr. Pierrepont aided the inventor in 
the establishment of Fulton Ferry, and was one of the directors until 
his death. 

A series of stone steps, during the early davs of his occupancy of 
"The Chimneys," led down to the shore, where Mr. Pierrepont kept a 
small boat in which he was accustomed to row himself each day to New 
York. He was deeply interested in beautifying the Heights, and he cut 
up his land into streets, which he named for many of his neighbors. 

Mr. Pierrepont once said that the people of Brooklyn and vicinity 
often dug for Captain Ridd's treasure, and that the hills were full of 
holes made by searchers. He added that such explorations had been 
made on his own estate and in other places on the Heights. On 

51 



f^ ' ^i -7"^^'^^ w ' j^^^^ay j -g 







^ I 'ZIP"' '■ '^ 'f! l li^" 



.mm^ 




C5 

z 

5 

Q 

o 

Pi 

H 

O 



s ° 



'C O 



fv^ 6C 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC B R O O K L V N 



November 25, 17S3, when the British troops formally evacuated New 
York, from the flagstaff of the Pierrepont mansion the American flag 
was unfurled. 

THE OLD FORT UPON THE Hl-'.ICHTS AND L0\ E LAX!-: 

Upon the Heights, where traffic and residences ha\'e long been, 
once stood the "most thoroughly constructed and complete fortifi- 
cations" erected by the British on Long Island. According to Stiles, 
the old Fort occupied what is now the junction of Pierrepont and 
Henry Streets. 7 he position was very commanding, and much time 
and labor were spent in completing the works. It was begun in Ma\-, 
1780, and was not fully finished in Jul)', 1781, when but eighteen can- 
nons had been put in place. The site of the fort at the time of its 
erection was occupied b\' fine orchards which spread over the level 
top of eminence, and these orchards were cut down by the two or 
three thousand soldiers, and the additional farmers, laborers, and 
mechanics who were impressed to dig the trenches and form the 
bastions of the fort. 

The fortifications were 450 feet square, and were surrounded by a 
ditch twenty feet deep, while the ramparts rose fifty feet above the 
level of the surface. On the bastions at each angle were afterward 
planted buttonwood trees, which grew to large size. Along the line of 
what is now Fulton Street between Pierrepont and Clark Streets were 
erected by the British army sutlers a row of small mud huts. 

Time has now effaced every vestige of this strong old redoubt, and 
apartments and residences, for which the Heights have long been 
famous, now cover the site of the fort and its vicinity. 

Another interesting feature of which time has only a remnant, though 
romance long lingered about it, was that short, private little lane which 
led between the DeBevoise and Pierrepont estates on the Heights 
in the vicinity of Columbia Heights and Pierrepont Street. The 
fourteen acres from the East River to Fulton Street and from north 
of the present Pierrepont Street to Love Lane were owned by two 
bachelors, Robert and John DeBevoise, whose grandfather had bought 
them in 1734 from Joris Remsen. Robert was stout, strong, and broad- 
faced, and having through disease lost his nose was greatly feared by 
the village urchins, although his disposition was kind. Perhaps the 
twenty or thirty savage dogs that the brothers kept about their 
home gave Robert a bad name. John was quite a contrast to his 
brother, being thin and consumptive. They occupied a small, ratlier 
old and battered looking home of Dutch architecture, and as house- 
keeper had a very beautiful girl, who bore their name and was treated 
as a daughter. This adopted child, Sarah DeBevoise, used the little 
lane between the DeBevoise and Pierrepont estates when promenading 
with her many admirers, and the numerous love lines with Miss 
DeBevoise's initials, which her admirers cut or scribbled upon the 
fence, gave the lane the name by which it was long known to residents 
of the Heights. Her first husband was a Samuel \'an Buren and her 
second Edward McComber. 

S3 



RAMBLES ABOUT HISTORIC BROOKLYN 




GREENLEAF FEMALE LNSTITUTE. BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 

Which stood on the site of the present Brooklyn Trust Company. From a print in the 
possession of the Brooklyn Trust Compan\-. 



THE GREENLEAF FEMALE INSTITUTE. PACKER INSTI- 
TUTE, AND THE POIATECHNIC INSTITUTE 

Brooklyn, particularly the Heights, has long been a stanch supporter 
of private schools. Some of these schools rank among the best in 
the land. On the site where now stands the new building of the 
Brooklyn Trust Company stood the Greenleaf Female Institute, one 
of the most famous schools on the Heights. Miss Sarah Ball, who 
attended the school, says that when Dr. Alfred Greenleaf decided to 
build in 1844 the school where now stands the Brooklyn Trust Com- 
pany, many of his friends told him the site was so far out of town that 
the school would be a failure. 

Dr. Greenleaf, who was a graduate of Dartmouth, had previously 
taught a boys' school in Brooklyn, and while he was not a born dis- 
ciplinarian, his wit, humor, and ardent love did more than discipline 
to keep his pupils in the narrow way of order. His readiness of wit 
was proverbial. For instance, when Miss England forgot her where- 
abouts and began talking, Dr. Greenleaf's long pointer would reach 
her way, and he would exclaim, "England, with all thy faults I 
love thee still," and she would subside. Many of his pupils shared 
his readiness of wit, and frequently they dropped into verse in reci- 
tation. 

At noon in summer Andrews' Bakery on Clinton Street drew to its 
sweet delectables most of the maidens of the school, and Clinton 
Street was then indeed a flutter of muslins. A wedding at Trinity 
Church at high noon was something that always attracted a bevy of 
girls and never failed to more or less upset the school. 

Dr. Greenleaf was surrounded by an excellent faculty, some well- 
known professors of New York often coming to Brooklyn to teach 
the girls natural sciences. Owing to ill health Dr. Greenleaf in 1870 
sold the school out to Mr. Bradbury, who kept it for several years 
before it eventually passed into the hands of others. And when the 

54 



RAMBLES A B O L' T HISTORIC BROOKLYN 

old school building was lovn down girls gathered from far and near 
to bid adieu to the place they had learned to love. 

Another institute for the higher education of girls was housed in 
a substantial brick building on Joralcnion Street, and was com- 
pleted and dedicated in 1846. The association which owned it was 
known as the Brooklyn Female Academy, and the school was under 
the management of Alonz.o Crittenden, who had left the Albany 
Female Acadeni}' to take charge of the new institute. 

In 1853 no less than 600 pupils were attending the school. On the 
first day of that year fire swept it away, but not for an instant, how- 
ever, was the school interrupted, for rooms were at once offered, and 
almost before the ruins had ceased smoking Mrs. Harriet L. Packer 
offered $65,000 for rebuilding it and )^20,ooo more if wanted, provided 
that it be made a girls' schoc^l exclusiveh'. The P>rooklyn Female 
Academy transferred its rights to this new school, and a new build- 
ing was erected on the ground of the old and dedicated September i, 
1854. In honor of the donor it has been known for years as Packer 
Institute. To it at one time or another nearly all the best-known 
families on the Heights have sent their children, and it has been 
enlarged again and again. So successful was the Packer Institute that 
it was not long before the members of its organization who had sons 
to educate founded a new institute for boys, which is now known as 
the Polytechnic Institute. 

Another celebrated educational institution for girls was the school 
conducted by Professor West — now known as the "Brooklyn Heights 
Seminary" — and located in a handsome old house on Pierrepont Street, 
formerly the residence of Simeon B. Chittenden. It was started in 
185 1 by Professor Alonzo Gra\', and in i860 came under the manage- 
ment of Dr. E. C. West, who built it into one of the most successful 
schools in Brooklyn. 

And now, having rambled over the most interesting parts of 
Brooklyn and having consumed all the time and space at our disposal, 
here on the Heights we bid the reader adieu, hoping that his perusal 
of this little brochure will be as pleasurable and profitable as the 
research and the writinu have been to the author. 




x. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 223 597 3 # 



